GBP strengthened against most of its major rivals in the European session on Monday, as Britain lifted a number of business and gathering restrictions, which were imposed to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year. 

On Monday, another host of lockdown rules were eased in England, Scotland and Wales, including the permission for pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants to serve customers indoors. But the UK's government warned that outbreaks of the Indian variant of coronavirus could cause a delay of the next - the third - stage of easing restrictions, currently planned for June. The British health secretary Matt Hancock said on Sunday that the new variant can “spread even faster” than the so-called UK's variant of the virus, which caused the second coronavirus wave during winter. He also noted that the Indian variant is already “becoming the dominant strain in some parts of the country."