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ISO 4217 is a standard published by the
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individual currencies and their minor units. This data is published in three tables: * Table A.1 – ''Current currency & funds code list'' * Table A.2 – ''Current funds codes'' * Table A.3 – ''List of codes for historic denominations of currencies & funds'' The first edition of ISO 4217 was published in 1978. The tables, history and ongoing discussion are maintained by SIX Group on behalf of ISO and the Swiss Association for Standardization. The ISO 4217 code list is used in
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...
ing and business globally. In many countries, the ISO 4217 alpha codes for the more common currencies are so well known publicly that exchange rates published in newspapers or posted in
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...
s use only these to delineate the currencies, instead of translated currency names or ambiguous currency symbols. ISO 4217 alpha codes are used on airline tickets and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price.


History

In 1973, the ISO Technical Committee 68 decided to develop codes for the representation of currencies and funds for use in any application of trade, commerce or banking. At the 17th session (February 1978), the related UN/ ECE Group of Experts agreed that the three-letter alphabetic codes for International Standard ISO 4217, "Codes for the representation of currencies and funds", would be suitable for use in international trade. Over time, new currencies are created and old currencies are discontinued. Such changes usually originate from the formation of new countries, treaties between countries on shared currencies or monetary unions, or
redenomination In monetary economics, redenomination is the process of changing the face value of banknotes and coins in circulation. It may be done because inflation has made the currency unit so small that only large denominations of the currency are in cir ...
from an existing currency due to excessive inflation. As a result, the list of codes must be updated from time to time. The ISO 4217 maintenance agency is responsible for maintaining the list of codes.


Types of codes


National currencies

In the case of national currencies, the first two letters of the alpha code are the two letters of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ' ...
and the third is usually the initial of the currency's main unit. So Japan's currency code is : "JP" for Japan and "Y" for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the names '' dollar, franc, peso'' and ''
pound Pound or Pounds may refer to: Units * Pound (currency), a unit of currency * Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom * Pound (mass), a unit of mass * Pound (force), a unit of force * Rail pound, in rail profile Symbols * Po ...
'' being used in dozens of countries, each having significantly differing values. While in most cases the ISO code resembles an abbreviation of the currency's full English name, this is not always the case, as currencies such as the Algerian dinar, Aruban florin, Cayman dollar, renminbi,
sterling Sterling may refer to: Common meanings * Sterling silver, a grade of silver * Sterling (currency), the currency of the United Kingdom ** Pound sterling, the primary unit of that currency Places United Kingdom * Stirling, a Scottish city w ...
and the Swiss franc have been assigned codes which do not closely resemble abbreviations of the official currency names. In some cases, the third letter of the alpha code is not the initial letter of a currency unit name. There may be a number of reasons for this: * It is considered important that the code of a completely new currency be highly mnemonic if possible. An example is the assignment of the code to the euro. ISO 4217 amendment 94, which created this code, states “The code element 'EU' has been reserved by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency for use within ISO 4217 where 'R' has been appended to make an acceptable mnemonic code.” Here the R comes from the third letter in the word “euro”. * The currency in question is replacing another currency of the same name, due to devaluation. So that the two currencies have different codes, a different third letter must be chosen for the code of the new currency. In some cases, the third letter is the initial for "new" in that country's language, to distinguish it from an older currency that was revalued; the code sometimes outlasts the usage of the term "new" itself (for example, the code for the Mexican peso is ). Another solution to a devalued currency having the same name as its predecessor is to choose a third letter which results in a 3-letter code with mnemonic significance. For example, the
Russian ruble ''hum''; cv, тенкĕ ''tenke''; kv, шайт ''shayt''; Lak: къуруш ''k'urush''; Mari: теҥге ''tenge''; os, сом ''som''; tt-Cyrl, сум ''sum''; udm, манет ''manet''; sah, солкуобай ''solkuobay'' , name_ab ...
changed from to following a devaluation, where the B comes from the third letter in the word "ruble".


X currencies (funds, precious metals, supranationals)

In addition to codes for most active national currencies ISO 4217 provides codes for "supranational" currencies, procedural purposes, and several things which are "similar to" currencies: * Codes for the
precious metal Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lu ...
s
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
(XAU),
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
(XAG), palladium (XPD), and
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...
(XPT) are formed by prefixing the element's chemical symbol with the letter "X". These "currency units" are denominated as one
troy ounce Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and ...
of the specified metal as opposed to "USD 1" or "EUR 1". * The code XTS is reserved for use in testing. * The code XXX is used to denote a "transaction" involving no currency. * There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, e.g. XDR is the symbol for
special drawing right Special drawing rights (SDRs, code ) are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SDRs are units of account for the IMF, and not a currency ''per se''. They represent a claim ...
issued by the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster gl ...
. * The codes for most supranational currencies, such as the
East Caribbean dollar The Eastern Caribbean dollar (symbol: EC$; code: XCD) is the currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as ...
, the CFP franc, the
CFA franc The CFA franc (french: franc CFA, , Franc of the Financial Community of Africa, originally Franc of the French Colonies in Africa, or colloquially ; abbreviation: F.CFA) is the name of two currencies, the West African CFA franc, used in eight W ...
BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the
European Currency Unit The European Currency Unit (, ; , ECU, or XEU) was a unit of account used by the European Economic Community and composed of a basket of member country currencies. The ECU came in to operation on 13 March 1979 and was assigned the ISO 42 ...
(ECU), had the code XEU. The use of an initial letter "X" for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO 3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. The inclusion of EU (denoting the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
) in the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list allows the
euro The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
to be coded as EUR rather than assigned a code beginning with X, even though it is a supranational currency.


Numeric codes

ISO 4217 also assigns a three-digit numeric code to each currency. This numeric code is usually the same as the numeric code assigned to the corresponding country by ISO 3166-1. For example, USD (
United States dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
) has numeric code which is also the ISO 3166-1 code for "US" (United States).


List of ISO 4217 currency codes


Active codes

The following is a list of active codes of official ISO 4217 currency names . In the standard the values are called "alphabetic code", "numeric code", "minor unit", and "entity". According to UN/CEFACT recommendation 9, paragraphs 8–9 ECE/TRADE/203, 1996: : 8. In applications where monetary resources associated with a currency (i.e. funds) need not be specified and where a field identifier indicating currency is used, the first two (leftmost) characters are sufficient to identify a currency—example: US for United States dollars for general, unspecified purposes where a field identifier indicating currency is present. (A field identifier can be a preprinted field heading in an aligned document or a similarly-agreed application in electronic transmission of data.) : 9. In applications where there is a need to distinguish between types of currencies, or where funds are required as in the banking environment, or where there is no field identifier, the third (rightmost) character of the alphabetic code is an indicator, preferably mnemonic, derived from the name of the major currency unit or fund—example: USD for general, unspecified purposes; USN for United States dollar next-day funds, and USS for funds which are immediately available for Federal Reserve transfer, withdrawal in cash or transfer in like funds (same-day funds). Since there is no need for such a distinction in international trade applications, the funds codes have not been included in the Annex to the present Recommendation.


Historical codes

A number of currencies had official ISO 4217 currency codes and currency names until their replacement by another currency. The table below shows the ISO currency codes of former currencies and their common names (which do not always match the ISO 4217 names). That table has been introduced end 1988 by ISO.


Currency details


Minor unit fractions

The 2008 (7th) edition of ISO 4217 says the following about minor units of currency: Examples for the ratios of :1 and :1 include the
United States dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
and the Bahraini dinar, for which the column headed “Minor unit” shows “2” and “3”, respectively. , two currencies have non-decimal ratios, the
Mauritanian ouguiya The ouguiya ( ar, rtl=yes, 1=أوقية موريتانية, links=, lit=, translit= (); sign: UM; code: MRU), at one time spelled "ougiya", is the currency of Mauritania. Each ouguiya constitutes five khoums (meaning "one fifth"). As such it i ...
and the Malagasy ariary; in both cases the ratio is 5:1. For these, the “Minor unit” column shows the number “2”. Some currencies, such as the
Burundian franc The franc ( ISO 4217 code is BIF) is the currency of Burundi. It is nominally subdivided into 100 ''centimes'', although coins have never been issued in centimes since Burundi began issuing its own currency. Only during the period when Burundi us ...
, do not in practice have any minor currency unit at all. These show the number “0”, as with currencies whose minor units are unused due to negligible value.


Code position in amount formatting

The ISO standard does not regulate either the spacing, prefixing or suffixing in usage of currency codes. According however to the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...
's Publication Office, in English, Irish, Latvian and
Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Malte ...
texts, the ISO 4217 code is to be followed by a
hard space In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of Monospaced font, fixed width), is a whitespace character, space character that prevents an Line ...
and the amount: :''a sum of EUR 30'' In Bulgarian,
Croatian Croatian may refer to: * Croatia *Croatian language *Croatian people *Croatians (demonym) See also * * * Croatan (disambiguation) * Croatia (disambiguation) * Croatoan (disambiguation) * Hrvatski (disambiguation) * Hrvatsko (disambiguation) * S ...
, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish,
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, Hungarian, Italian,
Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...
, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
the order is reversed; the amount is followed by a
hard space In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of Monospaced font, fixed width), is a whitespace character, space character that prevents an Line ...
and the ISO 4217 code: : Note that, as illustrated, the order is determined not by the currency but by the native language of the document context.


USD, USN: two US currency codes

The
US dollar The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
has two codes assigned: USD and USN ("US dollar next day"). The USS (same day) code is not in use any longer, and was removed from the list of active ISO 4217 codes in March 2014.


Non ISO 4217 currencies


Currencies without ISO 4217 currency codes

A number of active currencies do not have an ISO 4217 code, because they may be: (1) a minor currency pegged at par (1:1) to a larger currency, even if independently regulated, (2) a currency only used for commemorative banknotes or coins, or (3) a currency of an unrecognized or partially recognized state. These currencies include: * Abkhazian apsar * Alderney pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Artsakh dram *
Cook Islands dollar The Cook Islands dollar was the former currency of the Cook Islands, which now uses the New Zealand dollar, although some physical cash issued for the Cook Islands dollar remains in use. The dollar was subdivided into 100 '' cents'', with some o ...
(1:1 pegged to the New Zealand dollar) * Faroese króna (1:1 pegged to the Danish krone) * Guernsey pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Isle of Man pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Jersey pound (1:1 pegged to sterling) * Kiribati dollar (1:1 pegged to the Australian dollar) * Maltese scudo (1:0.24 pegged to the
euro The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
) * Real Time Gross Settlement dollar (ZWL occasionally used) * Sahrawi peseta (pegged to the euro), sometimes given the code "EHP" but this has not been assigned by the ISO *
Somaliland shilling The Somaliland shilling ( so, Shillin Somaliland, ar, شلن صوماليلاندي; abbreviation: SLS; symbol: /-, sometimes prefixed Sl.Sh.) is the official currency of the Republic of Somaliland. Overview The shilling has been the curren ...
(state of issue is viewed as ''
de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legall ...
'' part of
Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constitut ...
, exchange rate not fixed) * Transnistrian ruble (state of issue is viewed as ''de jure'' part of
Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnist ...
) * Tuvaluan dollar (1:1 pegged to the Australian dollar) * Zimbabwean bonds See :Fixed exchange rate for a list of all currently pegged currencies.


Non-standard codes

Despite having no presence or status in the standard, three letter acronyms that resemble ISO 4217 coding, are sometimes used locally or commercially to represent currencies or currency instruments. The following non-ISO codes were used in the past.


Unofficial codes for minor units of currency

Minor units of currency (also known as currency subdivisions or currency subunits) are often used for pricing and trading
stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
s and other assets, such as energy, but are not assigned codes by ISO 4217. Two conventions for representing minor units are in widespread use: * Replacing the third letter of the ISO 4217 Code of the parent currency with an upper-case "X". Examples are GBX for penny sterling, USX for the US Cent, EUX for the Euro Cent. * Replacing the third letter of the ISO 4217 Code of the parent currency with the first letter of the name of a minor unit, using lower-case. Examples are GBp for Penny Sterling, USc for the US Cent, EUc for the Euro Cent. A third convention is similar to the second one but uses an upper-case letter, e.g. ZAC for the South African Cent.


Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies have ''not'' been assigned an ISO 4217 code. However, some cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges use a three-letter acronym that resemble an ISO 4217 code.


See also

* ** * * List of circulating currencies * Tables of historical exchange rates to the United States dollar * List of international trade topics


Notes


References


External links

* ** (The official list of ISO 4217 alphabetic and numeric codes)
An older list of ISO 4217 alphabetic codes that contains some history of ISO 4217
( PDF file)
Position of the ISO code or euro sign in amounts

List of all currencies with names and ISO 4217 codes in all languages and all data formats
(Github) {{DEFAULTSORT:ISO 4217 Financial metadata Encodings International trade #04217 Financial regulation Financial routing standards