Facts about Currency

To facilitate trade between currency zones, there are exchange rates, which are the prices at which currencies (and the goods and services of individual currency zones) can be exchanged against each other.

Coins and paper money are both forms of currency.

Fiat currency adds an essential level of stability to economic transactions as buyers and sellers do not have to doubt the value of the medium of exchange (namely the money).

African currency is still notable for its variety, and in many places various forms of barter still apply.

Drafts, letters of credit, and checks issued privately had been in intermittent use for centuries, however, it was with the rise of global trade that paper money would find a permanent place in currency.

In Africa many forms have been used including beads, ingots, ivory, various forms of weapons, livestock, the manilla currency, ochre and other earth oxides, and so on.

Currency is used to facilitate trade by establishing standard values for items, removing the barrier of direct barter.

A currency is a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and services.

The creation of a truly national currency, backed by the government's store of precious metals, and enforced by their military and governmental control over an area was, in its time, extremely controversial.

Such a currency would be supported by a central bank for all transactions around the world, a step towards a more unified global society.

Governments at this point could use currency as an instrument of policy, printing paper currency such as the United States Greenback, to pay for military expenditures.

At various times countries have either re-stamped foreign coins, or used currency board issuing one note of currency for each note of a foreign government held, as Ecuador currently does.

Most modern banknotes are fiat currency, or money that is backed by government demand as legal tender, meaning that note cannot be refused for repayment of a debt.

The origin of currency is the creation of a circulating medium of exchange based on a unit of account which quickly becomes a store of value.

From the earliest times token coins were issued by companies in remote parts of the world to overcome the shortage of circulating currency.

Paper money was, in one sense, a return to the oldest form of currency: it represented a store of value backed by the credibility of the issuing authority.

No such official currency currently exists for a variety of reasons, political and economic.

Advocates of the old system of Free Banking repealed central banking laws, or slowed down the adoption of restrictions on local currency.

A currency zone is a country or region in which a specific currency is the dominant medium of exchange.