Talk:ISO 4217/Archives/2014

USD=2? USD=3!

Just because the USD doesn't have mills in active circulation doesn't mean they are nonexistant. The Coinage Act (1792) states..."That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and milles or thousandths". It is used in taxes and gas prices. If anyone is going to base an argument on the lowest available coinage, keep in mind countries such as Slovakia, which have levels of currency far below the lowest coin (50h is the lowest coin, but Slovakia is listed as 2 decimal places in this chart). samwaltz 00:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The information comes from the ISO standard, and is thus correct in this article even though everyone does it differently. See also: JPY. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.87.143.161 (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Standards

There is a Wikipedia:Requested move to move the Dong (currency) to Vietnamese dong. I notice that most, but not all pages follow the pattern of "country currency". I think all that can, should be moved into this format. There are a number where this will not be approprite EG the Euro. There are also some where "common (English) usage" may dictate another page name eg "Pound Sterling". But I think for the majority of currencies they should be in the format "country currency name" in line with ISO 4217. Also I think that the currency should start with an upper case letter eg "United States Dollar" instead of "United States dollar". What do others think? PBS 09:58, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree Zntrip 02:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the Dong issue, but disagree with the currency capitalization. — ナイトスタリオン _ㇳ–ㇰ — 09:45, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The currency list on this page is actually quite a mess as there are lots of mistakes on the currency names, although the currency codes do appear to be correct.

Where a currency name is not unique (e.g. Dollar, Pound, Franc, Rupee, Peso etc), ISO4217 uses the relevant country name or adjective, or another uniquely identifying word, as part of the currency name. Unique currency names do not include a country name or adjective in the official ISO currency names. However, many currency code lists, such as London FX, do include country names or adjectives for all currencies, even though this causes many of the currency names to differ from ISO4217. For the non-unique currency names, ISO tends to favour the name, rather than the adjective, of a country, so perhaps we should following this same tendency here for adding countries to the unique currency names.

I have identified the following non-unique currency names on the page here as differing from the official exact ISO4217 currency names. We should correct these mistakes. As a start, I am correcting GBP (Pound Sterling) immediately.

• AED = UAE Dirham, not United Arab Emirates dirham
• ANG = Netherlands Antillian Guilder, not Netherlands Antilles Gulden
• AZM = Azerbaijanian Manat, not Azerbaijani manat
• BAM = Bosnia and Herzegovina Convertible Marks, not Bosnia-Herzegovina convertible mark
• BBD = Barbados Dollar, not Barbadian dollar
• BMD = Bermudian Dollar, not Bermuda dollar
• BYR = Belarussian Ruble, not Belarusian ruble
• CDF = Franc Congolais, not Congolese franc
• CVE = Cape Verde Escudo, not Cape Verdean escudo
• EUR = euro, not European Union euro
• FJD = Fiji Dollar, not Fijian dollar
• GBP = Pound Sterling, not Great British Pound
• GYD = Guyana Dollar, not Guyanese dollar
• ISK = Iceland Krona, not Icelandic króna
• KMF = Comoro Franc, not Comorian franc
• KRW = Korean Won, not South Korean won
• LKR = Sri Lanka Rupee, not Sri Lankan rupee
• LVL = Latvian Lats, not Latvian lat
• NAD = Namibia Dollar, not Namibian dollar
• OMR = Rial Omani, not Omani rial
• PKR = Pakistan Rupee, not Pakistani rupee
• RWF = Rwanda Franc, not Rwandan franc
• SAR = Saudi Riyal, not Saudi Arabian riyal
• SHP = St Helena Pound, not Saint Helenian pound
• SRD = Surinam Dollar, not Suriname dollar
• TMM = Turkmenistan Manat, not Turkmen manat
• TRY = Turkish Lira, not New Turkish lira
• UGX = Uganda Shilling, not Ugandan shilling
• USD = US Dollar, not United States dollar
• UYU = Peso Uruguayo, not Uruguayan peso
• UZS = (Uzbekistan) Sum, not (Uzbekistani) som
• XDR = SDR (Special Drawing Rights), not Special Drawing Rights (IMF)
• ZWD = Zimbabwe Dollar, not Zimbabwean dollar

Furthermore, ISO4217 capitalises the first letter of each currency name (except for the euro). We should do likewise here for all currency names in order to comform as closely as possible to ISO4217.

In summary, I suggest that we use the exact ISO4217 currency name. If the currency name is unique, we should insert the relevant country name or adjective, with a preference for the country name. For example, we should use the exact ISO name "Pound Sterling" because "pound" is not unique, but we should use enriched name "Latvian Lats" (inserting "Latvian") because "Lats" is unique.

The only place you can get the full ISO4217 official currency list is to buy it from ISO. You can also find it for free in the SWIFT book, but everything is capitalised.

Nfh 19:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I can certainly live with Guatemalan quetzal instead of Quetzal (currency); and for the sake of consistency I can accept moving Ariary to Malagasy ariary. But even as a fan of ISO 4217, I have to point out that it does follow some very strange decisions: Why peso uruguayo? (Are the other pesos' countries translated?) Why "Latvian" (adjective) but "Namibia" (noun)? Why "Surinam" if the country's own preferred spelling is "Suriname"? And the capitalization issue -- while probably quite valid in the context of presenting a standardized list of names -- seems to fly in the face of "use common names" and the guidelines of most style manuals: Chicago, Associated Press, World Bank. Times, ITU, etc. all used lower-case dollars, etc. –Hajor 20:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I proposed more sensible moves at Requested moves and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 21:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that some of the choice of names comes down to the country's own preference. This is definitely true of ISO country names. For example, the following are all official ISO English language "short names" of countries: Russian Federation, Libyan Arab Jamahiria, Iran (Islamic Republic of). These are the choices of the countries themselves, and no doubt currency names are affected by the same decisions. The ISO4217 name of currency LVL, being a unique name is simply "Lats". I added "Latvian" to be consistent with the existing list, as it was the name of the currency that was wrong, not the country. On the subject of Suriname, ISO4217 has the country name as "Suriname", but the currency name as "Surinam Guilder" - I agree that is odd. Nfh 21:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Note, however, that Wikipedia policy is not to use the official name, but rather the most common name. (Which I'm not always happy about - East-Timor should be Timor-Leste - but in this case, I agree.) Please go through my list of suggested moves and tell me which ones you can't agree with, and then we can discuss those. Deal? ナイトスタリオン ✉ 22:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

And regarding capitalization: I'm pretty sure there's a consensus that dollar, euro, pound and the likes should not be capitalized. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 22:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is supposed to be specifically about ISO4217, not simply about currency codes in general. We should therefore use the ISO names (including ISO's capitalisation), not the most common names. Nfh 20:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

... good point, actually. Alright, I support changing the listed names in this article to the ISO-4217 ones, but I would still advocate using the ones listed by me at Requested moves for the article names. Agreed? ナイトスタリオン ✉ 09:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. I would only add that we should use the capitalisation used by ISO4217 for the currency names. Nfh 20:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find consensus on that... And I don't think it should be that way. Going through Google News searching for "canadian dollar", I find many more "Canadian dollar"s on the first ten pages than "Canadian Dollar"s. If you really insist, though, I'm not opposed to voting on it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 21:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and just go ahead with updating the list in this article to the official ISO names, you've got my support on that. ナイトスタリオン ✉ 21:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

External link

There is also a list at http://www.xe.net/iso4217.htm

Bitcoin

       criterion of currency (issued by a recognized state)

Not sure how this is a relevant criterion for inclusion, considering the official list includes troy ounces of gold and silver, neither of which are state currencies. Can anyone provide list of gold ounces and silver ounces, issued as state currencies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.183.218.215 (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

None of the X-prefix codes are "issued by a recognized state". Many are issued by transnational bodies and a few are not even financial ones (International Union of Railways). There is also a test code. Since the monetary base of Bitcoin of $2.2bn (as at Oct 2013) is larger than that of several dozen countries, the "recognized state" criterion of currency is fatally flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.201.154.202 (talk) 06:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Worthy of note: Bloomberg started tracking Bitcoin prices recently (2014-Apr-30) on their ticker, and they're using "XBT" as the ticker symbol. One more datum in favor of including it in the table? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.220.40.147 (talk) 18:04, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

The article is about the ISO 4217 standard. Is Bitcoin in that standard? No. Should it be? Irrelevant. It isn’t. Failing coherent objection soon, I’ll amend. JDAWiseman (talk) 19:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Bitcoin?

At present XBT is not an official ISO code but I fear an edit war after an IP user reverted a legitimate edit that removed XBT as an official ISO code, accusing it as vandalism. How should I proceed with this? Also, I have a proposed citation that would prove that BTC and XBT are not yet official, but share good amount of usage ([1]). --Marianian^(talk) 23:12, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I think that you are correct to fear an edit war. There seems to be confusion between ISO 4217, and a desired list of currencies. They are not the same. Also, please could this § be merged into the other section on Bitcoin? JDAWiseman (talk) 09:02, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the comment above. As part of my job, I keep an eye on various non-ISO 4217 currencies. These include (frequently used Alpha code in parentheses):

Bitcoin (BTC)

Chinese Yuan Offshore (CNH)

Costa Rican Unidad de Desarrollo (CRU)

Uruguayan Peso en Unidades Reajustables (UYR)

The very real existence and usage of these currencies does not make them into ISO 4217 currencies. Misha Wolf (talk) 13:23, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Of course “CNH” is not ISO4217, so not precisely defined. But my understanding of conventional usage is that CNH refers to Yuan in Hong Kong. If you know otherwise, please say so. JDAWiseman (talk) 14:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

While the bulk of CNH trades take place in Hong Kong, the main difference between CNH and CNY is that CNH floats freely and CNY does not. Consequently, the value of one CNH (against some other currency) generally differs from the value of one CNY (against that currency). There are Web sites which allow one to obtain the value in CNH of a specified amount in CNY and vice versa. Hence, the two must be considered to be distinct currencies. If and when the CNY becomes fully convertible, this difference will -- presumably -- disappear. Misha Wolf (talk) 21:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, have the Bitcoin believers made clear why they think that the Bhutan centime (surely the meaning of BTC) is worthy of pseudo-inclusion, but Dogecoin / Litecoin / etc don’t qualify? JDAWiseman (talk) 14:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems that Bitcoin is getting the most attention by the media, and that without doubt OANDA and Xe.com relay rates for them, with unofficial codes. As a proposed compromise, would it be safe to list BTC/XBT under "Unofficial currency codes", with the citation I proposed? FYi, I don't support nor oppose Bitcoin, because it's a bit advanced for me while I could simply print my own money from scratch, buy my own gold to back the value and call it currency. --Marianian^(talk) 17:52, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

‘Unofficial’ meaning non-ISO4217. Sure, even though a page on ISO 4217 is a strange place to list them. But no objection from me. JDAWiseman (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Duly taken into account, but I would like to request further opinion as there is a hidden editor note in the "unofficial" section discouraging such inclusion at present. I don't think it is worth getting bashed for acting on one opinion . --Marianian^(talk) 22:15, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

While I have no opinion on the general issue of the inclusion of Bitcoin in section 5.2 (Unofficial currency codes) carried out on 22 December 2014, the edit -- as it stands -- is logically flawed.

Section 5.1 (Currencies without ISO 4217 currency codes) starts as follows:

A number of currencies are not included in ISO 4217, because these currencies are: (a) minor currencies pegged 1:1 to a larger currency, even if independently regulated (b) a legal tender only issued as commemorative banknotes or coinage, or (c) a currency of an unrecognized or partially recognized state. These currencies include:

Section 5.2 then listed a subset of the codes listed in section 5.1. In that context, the introductory sentence of section 5.2 made sense:

The following non-ISO codes are, however, sometimes used commercially.

Note the use of the word however, which was used to indicate that although none of the currencies listed in section 5.1 are ISO 4217 currencies, the subset listed in section 5.2 is used commercially.

Following the edit, this logical structure has been broken.

One or other of the following actions should now be taken:

1. Remove Bitcoin.
2. Amend the wording of the introductory paragraph of section 5.1 to cater for currencies such as Bitcoin and add Bitcoin to the list in section 5.1

Misha Wolf (talk) 13:04, 23 December 2014 (UTC)