RUB or RUR? Currency Codes

In general, the development and production of international standards in most areas of human activity is International Organization for Standardization - ISO (International Organization forStandardization). The list of international standards is extensive - from the paper format to the transliteration of characters from different alphabets into the Latin alphabet. One of the international standards developed by ISO is the currency codes.

Why do we need currency codes? They help to represent currencies in data processing in financial systems. Use of abbreviated currency codes allowssimplify and expedite financial transactions. A banal household example: currency rates in banks are also written in abbreviated form. So even if you are abroad, you can understand the exchange rate in any bank - international codes of currencies are universal and do not need translation.

In addition, there is no confusion and the need for clarification in those cases where in different countries the same currency name is used (say, American and Canadian dollar, Russian and Belarusian ruble).

Currency codes are defined international standard ISO 4217 (Interstate currency classifier MK). This standard, in turn, is based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 state code standard, the two-letter codes for states and dependent territories. Two-letter codes are used not only to refer to the national currency but also, for example, in domain names of the first level (.ru, .ua,. Cz, etc.).

In order to from the two-letter country codes to generate currency codes, one letter of the currency name is added to them. Usually this is the first letter, for example:

• 
  USD - US (United States) + Dollar;
• 
  UAH - UA (Ukraine) + Hrivna;
• 
  LTL - LT (Latvia) + Lat.

Of course, there are exceptions to the "rule of the first letter". Thus, the Azerbaijani manat is reduced to AZN (and not AZM, as one might think), Angolan kwanza - to AOA, etc. But the two exceptions that we face most often are the euro and the Russian ruble. The code for the euro is EUR, and in countries where the euro is used as the official currency, naturally, there is no specific national currency code.

And the Russian ruble used to cut back on the commonprinciple - RUR (Russian Ruble). But in 1998, there was a denomination in Russia (a change in the face value of the ruble). The denomination allows you to deal with the effects of hyperinflation and simplify calculations. Old rubles were replaced by new ones with a coefficient of 1000: 1 (1,000 old rubles corresponded to 1 new one). Currency code was changed from RUR to RUB - obviously, to distinguish between "old" rubles and "new". So, the generally accepted reduction in the current ruble is RUB.

The letters of the currencies that start with the letter X, have international currencies, as well as other assets (for example, precious metals - silver, gold, platinum, palladium). For non-currency transactions use the code XXX. In addition to alphabetic, there are digital currency codes. They also consist of three characters and are governed by the ISO 4217 standard.

At the moment the official list of currency codesAccording to ISO 4217 there are 280 positions and includes alphabetic and digital codes of currencies of different countries, interethnic currencies and other assets. Based on the ISO 4217 standard, a OKV - All-Russian Classifier of Currencies.