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I think five shillings (20 shillings in a pound) was sometimes called a dollar because for a long time there were four US dollars to the pound.

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A dollar is 10 shilling, or half a pound, and I believe the name goes back much further than the US dollar, to the time when various European precious metal coinages would have been recognized and converted.

The Australian dollar, and perhaps others, was set equal to half a British pound at the point when they obtained their own currency.

The South African rand was indeed also introduced as half a pound in 1961 (technically half a South African pound, but that had been equal to the pound sterling except 1931-1933)

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