former English and British coin, nominally valued at one-twentieth of a pound sterling, or 12 pence. The shilling was conjointly formerly the financial unit of Australia, Austria, New Zealand, and Ireland. Today it's the fundamental financial unit in Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Uganda.

A silver coin of 12 pence, referred to as a teston in France or a testoon in Britain, was first struck in 1504 it bore a profile likeness of Henry VII of England and was engraved by Alexander Bruchsal. This coin was continued by Henry VIII and was renamed the shilling throughout the succeeding reign of Edward VI. (The direct origin of the word is obscure; there was an Anglo-Saxon coin termed scilling or scylling, and a few German states minted schillings from the thirteenth century onward.) By 1921 the price of the British shilling had become merely token, for the coins silver content had become fractional in 1947 it became wholly cupronickel (copper-nickel alloy). The shilling was phased out of the British system of coinage beginning in 1971, when a decimal system primarily based on a hundred new pence to £1 was introduced.

The schilling was the Austrian currency till 2002, when it was replaced by the euro because the country's sole currency. In Kenya the shilling is split into a hundred cents, and a Kenya pound is equivalent to 20 Kenya shillings. The shilling became Kenya's official financial unit in 1967, when it replaced the East Africa shilling. The Central Bank of Kenya, established in 1966, has the only authority to issue banknotes and coins. Banknotes, which feature on the obverse a picture of Daniel arap Moi (president of Kenya from 1978 to 2002), are issued in denominations from fifty to one,000 shillings. The reverse aspect of the notes contains images of monuments, buildings, and wildlife. Coin denominations issued range from ten cents to forty shillings.

The Central Bank of Somalia has the exclusive authority to issue the Somali shilling the Somali shilling was adopted as the countrys currency in 1960. The Tanzanian shilling, issued by the Bank of Tanzania, and therefore the Ugandan shilling, issued by the Bank of Uganda, became their respective countries official currencies in 1967. The Somali, Tanzanian, and Ugandan shillings are all divided into 100 cents they were every introduced at par with the East Africa shilling.