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If it meant that, I'd expect it to be:

"The pound won’t be around for much longer"

so the original sentence is sort of a pun. Maybe "around" is a local use of English.

Just like “until” is commonly shortened “till”, “around” is commonly shortened as “round”.

Thanks to the "you see what you expect to see" effect, it took me until someone pointed out the pun before I realized the word was "round" and not "around".

I know this doesn't affect your point, but it's interesting: "till" is older than "until".

http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=until

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