The euro eased from a recent four-week high on the dollar on Thursday, showing no reaction to the European Central Bank's decision to hold rates steady as markets quickly turned to key US jobs data due this week.
The Bank of England's widely anticipated decision to hike interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Thursday, and the apparently hawkish tone of its subsequent statement, boosted the British pound.
"There was no real news flow coming from the ECB - no statement, no change," said Adrian Hughes, currency strategist at HSBC in London. "The more important figure is the US non-farm payrolls on Friday."
By 1200 GMT the euro was down a third of a percent from late New York trade at $1.2121, and below Wednesday's four-week peak around $1.2180.
But it was 0.4 percent up at 132.63 yen while the yen also lost around 0.7 percent to 109.47 per dollar in the first day of trading after Japan's Golden Week holidays.
Sterling traded slightly higher on the day against the dollar at $1.7945, but was slightly down from post-BoE decision peaks around $1.7970.
It also rose from its lowest level against the euro since the middle of March to trade half a percent up on the day at 67.51 pence per euro.
"The BoE decision was what pretty much everyone had expected. The BoE made an overall upbeat statement and that is marginal positive for sterling," said David Mann, currency strategist at Standard Chartered.
From the United States, weekly jobless claims, a precursor to the payrolls, are due at 1230 GMT. Economists are forecasting 335,000 claims for the latest week, compared with 338,000 a week earlier.