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Is the historical codes table in any kind of order? If not, I will sort it by code after I give anyone interested a chance to reply. Jlhollin ( talk)

• I just sorted the historical currencies table. The table is sortable by the reader, but I thought it would be better for it to have some kind of order without the reader having to do anything. I was going to sort it strictly by code, but I thought it better to sort by date within the group of codes representing a country. So the table is more or less by code except for countries which have had many currency code changes. Jlhollin ( talk) 18:06, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • This ad hoc sort sequence is confusing without explanation, which isn't present in the article. I've sorted historical codes the same way as active codes: by code. DRMcCreedy ( talk) 16:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The search box introduced in this change is useless. It simply goes to the page corresponding to whatever user fills in. For example, when I fill in ARS and hit "Go" I expect Argentine peso but got ARS.-- Franklin Yu ( talk) 20:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@ Numberguy6: may be interested in this discussion. -- Franklin Yu ( talk) 20:42, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@ Franklin Yu: Yes, you can remove it. -- Numberguy6 ( talk) 21:08, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@ Franklin Yu: This type of search box is found on Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages, where you input the language code after the colon and get redirected to the correct article. I made a change to the currency search box to make it behave the same for the language search box, but for currencies. The search box is just like the default search box for Wikipedia, therefore you must leave the default value when you search. So ISO 4217:ARS should redirect you to the desired page. However, a lot of these redirects are missing, and needs to be created.

There are inconsistencies between the pages about ISO 4217 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.

On the article about ISO 3166, it states that the code SF was reserved from 1995-09, and Finland is officially assigned the code FI. I see this implying that the code FI wasn't used for Finland as the ISO 3166 code until 1995-09. ISO 4217 uses the code from ISO 3166, followed by one additional letter. This means that the code for Finnish markka from 1860 to 1995-09 should have been SFM, as that was presumably their country code. Then changed to FIM on 1995-09 as their country code changed. Furthermore, the article states that FIM was retired on 1999-01-01, but that was only the year Finland joined the euro-area, not when they dropped markka. It wasn't until 2002-02-28 that FIM was retired as a currency. Source: Finland and the euro - Europa.eu

Suggested changes, if I've understood the information correctly:
Add historical currency: SFM / ... / 2 / Finnish markka / 1860 / 1995-09 / FIM (EUR)
Update historical currency: FIM / 246 / 2 / Finnish markka / 1995-09 / 2002-02-28 / EUR
(parts in bold marks updated values)

Liggliluff ( talk) 21:21, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

From personal experience, FI and FIM were industry-standard long before 1995. I worked with currency data from most of the major suppliers in the 1990s and never saw SFM used. It might be better to find a reliable source before changing these entries. Certes ( talk) 23:34, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Should this local currency ( SPL) be included in the list of unofficial currency codes? -- Robocoder ( t| c) 18:09, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

The Exponent section gives the Mauritanian ouguiya as the example for a currency with a non-decimal division of units. But what is the exponent in that case? It can't be log₁₀ 5, can it? ◀ Sebastian 02:26, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The table defines E as the number of digits after the decimal separator. An example of "1.2 UM" is given so, if forced to choose a numeric value, it's "1". It's probably better just to put a footnote there with no number. "2" is wrong. Certes ( talk) 10:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The exponent is defined as part of ISO 4217. We can footnote it, but we can't declare it "wrong". — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 17:20, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

So, Gordon, where do you see that the exponent for the khoum is officially “2”? If you see it in an official document, why don't you provide a reference? I see a “2” under “Minor unit” at https://www.currency-iso.org/en/home/tables/table-a1.html, but that uses none of the terms used here in this article: Neither “exponent”, nor khoum, nor, for that matter, iraimbilanja, which our article refers to as a second example. So it takes some OR to reach the conclusion that you here declare to be part of the standard. But the text I was asking about doesn't even claim that the exponent is “2”: As it currently stands – introducing two examples and then withholding the crucial information – it is doubly frustrating the reader and should better be removed. ◅  Sebastian 06:47, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know where the term "exponent" came from, but at least as far back as ISO 4217:1990 (4th Edition), "minor unit" has been defined as part of the standard, as a base 10 ratio, using the same values listed in the table in this article. I think it's rather disingenuous to call a determination that they are equivalent "original research" – if anything, the original research is the use of the term "exponent" in the first place.

Your original comment refers to Mauritanian ouguiya, the currency of Mauritania; this currency had the code MRO until it was re-denominated in ISO 4217 Amendment 165 in 2017, at which point it was given the code MRU. From the time it was introduced, MRU has had a minor unit of 2, which is reflected in both the amendment that introduced it and the latest copy of List One available. At the time of its retirement in that same amendment, MRO also had a minor unit of 2, which it had in ISO 4217:2008 (8th Edition) and ISO 4217:1995 (5th Edition). In ISO 4217:1990 (4th Edition), the minor unit of MRO is indicated with only a footnote that reads: "The lowest recorded value for the Ouguiya is the Khoum (1 Ouguiya = 5 Khoums)."

So: the "exponent" referenced in this article is identical to the "minor unit" defined in the ISO 4217 standard. The Mauritanian ouguiya currency has only a 1⁄5 sub-denomination known as the khoums (literally "one fifth" in Arabic), which could be written in decimal as 0.2. However, ISO 4217, the standard we are documenting, claims that subunits of up to 1⁄100 (0.01) could be used. Thus, we document the minor unit as 2 with a footnote indicating that a minor unit of 1 would suffice and that, in practice, no subunit smaller than 0.2 is used.

As for the currency of Madagascar: the Malagasy franc was assigned the code MGF and had a minor unit of 0 until its use was discontinued in ISO 4217 Amendment 124 in 2004. The Malagasy ariary was assigned the code MGA when it was introduced in ISO 4217 Amendment 120 in 2003, and was originally indicated to have a minor unit of 0 like its predecessor; only a few months later, in ISO 4217 Amendment 122, the minor unit was changed to 2, where it remains today. The story here is fairly straightforward: The switch from the franc to the aviary was in fact one of re-denomination. " Iraimbilanja" originally meant "franc" in Malagasy, while "aviary" meant "5 francs"; when the aviary (i.e. 5 francs) became the major unit, the meaning of "iraimbilanja" shifted to mean 1⁄5 aviary. Thus, because there were no sub-denominations of the franc, and the only sub-denominations of the aviary are based on previous franc values, the smallest subdivision of the aviary is 1⁄5. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 22:41, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Gordon, do you have a reference for your claim that “the "exponent" [employed] in this article is identical to the "minor unit"”? That would contradict the current wording, which defines the currency "exponent" as the “mechanism for expressing the relationship between a major currency unit and its corresponding minor currency unit.” Obviously, a mechanism for expressing the relationship between A and B is neither identical to A, nor to B. If you are right, and you can source it, then the definition should be changed in the article.

But thank you for contributing your rich background knowledge. Please don't think it isn't appreciated. ◅  Sebastian 19:37, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

The 2008 (7th) edition of ISO 4217, the latest edition I currently have a copy of, says the following about minor units of currency:

Requirements sometimes arise for values to be expressed in terms of minor units of currency. When this occurs, it is necessary to know the decimal relationship that exists between the currency concerned and its minor unit. This information has therefore been included in this International Standard and is shown in the column headed “Minor unit” in Tables A.1 and A.2; “0” means that there is no minor unit for that currency, whereas “1”, “2” and “3” signify a ratio of 10:1, 100:1 and 1 000:1 respectively. The names of the minor units are not given.

— §6 Minor units of currency

That seems substantially similar to me.

But perhaps I was inexact in my statement: I don't mean to say that "exponent" and "minor unit of currency" are inherently the same thing. (As you say, what this article calls "exponent" is in fact an indicator of the relationship between the major unit of currency and the minor unit of currency.) I only mean to say (1) that "exponent" is a novel term, and (2) that this article captures the same data under the header of "exponent" that the standard captures under the header of "minor unit". — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 16:48, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the term “exponent” is anything but novel; it has been used in mathematics for hundreds of years. But I think what you mean is that the currency standard people use it in a novel way. That may well be, but we still have no source for it. All we can say for sure is that it works the same as the time honored mathematical exponent for powers of 10, but it seems nobody knows what their novel “mechanism” does with ratios such as 1⁄5.

I thought they would have thought of that, but if even people familiar with the standard such as you can't find anything about that, it seems that they just jerryrigged their proprietary “mechanism” to resemble something like the well maintained machine of mathematics, but never thought it through.

Now, the question is: How do we deal with this situation? To be honest, I don't see a completely satisfactory answer. What I, as a reader, would hope to find in an encyclopedia in such a case would be a statement like “For powers of 10, the exponent is ... . For other ratios, the standard gives no exponent.” The problem with that is that it's a negative statement, something that can not be taken directly from the source. What do you think? ◅  Sebastian 02:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

When I say that "exponent" is novel, I mean that it is not a term used in ISO 4217; it appears that an author of this article independently chose to use it, extrapolating from the description quoted above to the mathematical definition you refer to. As I mentioned above, the standard provides an indicator for the ratio of minor unit of currency to major unit of currency for essentially all currencies, including the Mauritanian ouguiya and the Malagasy ariary. (It is 2 for both, indicating a ratio of 100:1, or 1⁄100.) The question of how to represent situations where the smallest minor unit of currency is not a factor of 10 is not a concern of the (more recent versions of) the standard; it is purely a self-inflicted issue within the article. If the article were to faithfully reproduce the terminology and tables used in the standard, the topic of non-decimal fractional currency would be nothing more than noteworthy trivia. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 05:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh, now I understand. All along, I was under the impression that the “exponent” was defined as part of ISO 4217. If it really isn't, then we should purge the term from this article, with maybe one mention such as "... called “exponent” by some{{ by whom}}". (The same may apply to the term “mechanism”, which is somewhat misleading, too.) I would go ahead and do that, and instead include the reference you provided above.

However, one problem remains: As §6 correctly states, there are situations in which values need to be expressed in terms of minor units, and then one obviously needs to know the relationship. But just as obvious, the relationship 1:5 is different from 1:100. So why in the world would the standard assign the number “2” to the Mauritanian relationship? This seems to be what Certes meant above by “"2" is wrong”. You're both right: It's not wrong because it is indeed what the standard says. But it is wrong in that it indicates the wrong relationship, thereby defying the stated intention of §6. If that had been written before 1971, I doubt that they would have gotten away with such inaccuracy.

So, what should we do about that? We could just sweep it under the rug, just as §6 does. But that would do justice neither to our WP:WORLDVIEW aspiration nor to the curiosity of some of our readers (and editors). How about “For the two {{ as of|2020}} currently existing currencies with other relations, ..., said column shows the number 2.”? ◅  Sebastian 07:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, I think we've exhausted the material we could possibly use to discuss this point. We're essentially debating over decimal points. I think the International Organization for Standardization, which has consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, has a much broader worldview than any of us could have individually. If ISO says that these two currencies require two decimal digits after the decimal point to represent their minor unit, I think doing anything more than mentioning in a footnote that the lowest issued fractional unit of that currency is non-decimal would be the OR that we are trying to avoid in the first place. (But since you reference Decimal Day, I will note that Decimalisation and Non-decimal currency mention that the two currencies we are discussing have values such that the purchasing power of their fractional units is practically nil. I will also note, for the benefit of WORLDVIEW, that the British and Irish pounds were not the final currency to decimalize; decimalization of the Maltese lira and the Nigerian naira occurred later.) — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 04:38, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your input and the quote. I now replaced the “exponent” text as discussed. Can you please add the correct reference for your quote? ◅  Sebastian 07:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks also for the links to the Maltese lira and the Nigerian naira. For the former, the decimalization, according to our article, occurred in 2007. Would you know, by any chance, when the naira was decimalized? Maybe it's still in your 2008 edition of the standard? ◅  Sebastian 07:28, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Nigerian naira, the Central Bank and other sources agree that the decimal naira replaced the non-decimal pound on 1 January 1973. Certes ( talk) 09:10, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Certes, so it's been just the two, MRO/MRU and MGA, since the publication of Gordon's edition, and my “{{ asof|2020}}”, which refers to it, is still correct. ◅  Sebastian 09:36, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

“Exponent” in Infobox currency

Drmccreedy's edit summary made me search for occurrences of “exponent” in articles linking here with this query. To my surprise I got 64 hits (not counting Cape Verde, for which I don't know why it showed up). It seems that all of these come from template:Infobox currency, which has a parameter iso_exponent that also displays the text “Exponent”. Now, what should we do about that?

For the parameter name, how about iso_digits? Or should we leave that, because it doesn't show in the article and people generally don't want to change what they're used to? Or should we duplicate the parameter, at least for a transition period?

As for the text, can we find something that's about as short as “Exponent”? The “number of digits after the decimal separator”, which is what Drmccreedy wrote in the footnotes, is far too long. “Digits” would be too general. “Minor unit digits” might be a good compromise. Since it is about as long as “Unofficial user(s)”, which is currently the longest name, it would not change the appearance of the infobox.

Another solution would be to leave out the whole exponent business altogether. After all, it does not provide any information beyond that already provided under “Subunit”.

There are so many options. It would be nice if we could agree on a preferred option here before we carry it to the template talk page. ◅  Sebastian 18:56, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

"Decimal places" is an option, which could be rendered as "dp" with a tooltip. Certes ( talk) 19:03, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Does the ISO 4217 standard itself use "decimal places" or is it always "minor unit"? My concern here is separating the standard's de jure definition of minor unit from a de facto use of decimal places for any given currency. I'm guessing that at least one currency is used differently than it's definition. Maybe I'm overthinking this though. "Decimal places" is the probably the most concise definition for the oddly named "minor currency unit". DRMcCreedy ( talk) 21:24, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I think that the best option is to not display this field in the infobox.

The only use of the field that I can think of is to make up for the fact that, in cases where there are (supposedly) multiple subunits, the infobox template does not appear to indicate which is the official subunit. I find the way multiple subunits are treated quite bizarre. For example, the USD infobox lists 5 subunits: quarter, dime, nickel, cent and mill. It appears to give no indication that the cent is the official subunit. But this fault would be best corrected by some tweak to the code associated with the template rather than by displaying a field which, to 99.99% of users, will seem meaningless. For example, it would probably be possible to use the value of a concealed iso_digits field to somehow flag the official subunit in the infobox (in cases where multiple subunits are listed). For example, where the iso_digits field has the value 2, the subunit with the subunit_ratio 1⁄100 would be flagged.

I do appreciate that the approach I have described would not convey the values assigned by ISO 4217 to currencies where the real-world ratios are non-decimal, but surely such a piece of information is not a property of the currency and so does not belong in a page discussing the currency, but rather in a page discussing ISO 4217. Misha Wolf ( talk) 21:45, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I think that I should start a new topic to discuss the use of the term "currency subunit" as this issue extends beyond the use of the iso_exponent (or iso_digits) field in template:Infobox currency. Misha Wolf ( talk) 18:32, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I was the one who added iso_exponent to the infobox, back in 2016, as a way to capture the information defined by ISO 4217. That is why it is explicitly in a section called "ISO 4217". I likely chose the name based upon the terminology used in this article, so I am open to renaming it. I disagree that it is inherently tied to any other problems that may exist with the infobox with regard to currency subunits, but I agree that both are discussions that should occur on the template talk page, rather than here. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 01:50, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm unhappy with various aspects of this table:

• The row for cryptocurrency Dash states, in the Notes column, "Dash does not conform to any standard." This should, presumably, be "DASH does not conform to any standard." as it is the code that does not conform rather than the cryptocurrency.
• Some of the table rows say, in the Notes column, "[...] conflicts with ISO 4217, because [...] stands for [...].". In reality, they all conflict with ISO 4217. I cannot imagine what line of reasoning would cause one to say that, say, BNB does conflict with ISO 4217, and that BCH does not.

Misha Wolf ( talk) 23:31, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your first point and have changed the note.

BCH, BNB and other codes conflict in the sense that ISO 4217 is free to allocate them officially for some other purpose, but don't conflict in the sense that no such allocation has actually occurred. As ISO 4217 codes normally use the ISO 3166 codes as prefix, a difference is that ISO 3166 alpha-2 allocates BN (to Brunei) but not BC. This might make BNB more likely to conflict in future, but we're not here to make predictions. Perhaps we should reword these notes too. Certes ( talk) 23:56, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm unhappy about this table, especially the "Num" column:

• The table seems to confuse currency codes and currencies. ISO 4217 numeric codes represent currencies. They do not represent currency codes.
• It seems to mix official numeric codes assigned to currencies by ISO 4217 (156, 376 and 901) with unofficial numeric codes.
• It seems to be used inconsistently. For example, RMB is shown with 156 but CNH is shown with no number. This is despite the fact that both RMB and CNH are unofficial codes for the Chinese yuan (CNY/156).

I think that the table should:

• Make clear which of the rows contain official ISO 4217 currencies, albeit using unofficial codes.
• Make clear that the numeric codes shown in those rows are official ISO 4217 numeric codes.
• Include, in the Notes column, the official ISO 4217 codes for those currencies which have them.

Misha Wolf ( talk) 22:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

On second thoughts, the situation with CNH is quite hard to capture in a table like this one. For example, the RMB vs USD rate is identical to the CNY vs USD rate, as RMB is used as an alias for CNY. By contrast, the CNH vs USD rate is not the same as the CNY vs USD rate as CNH is not an alias for CNY. It behaves as a different currency. Maybe we should change the name "Chinese yuan" in the Currency column to "Chinese yuan (offshore)" and treat it as a distinct currency. This would justify not including the 156 numeric code in that row. Misha Wolf ( talk) 22:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I'd recommend removing the number and exponent columns entirely. There may be some value in the exponent column but numeric country codes for currency codes not in the standard are probably pointless (or worse, misleading, making them look more official than they are). I'd add a column for official currency codes, probably right after the unofficial (first) column. DRMcCreedy ( talk)

I like both of those ideas. What to do, though, about the CNH row? I think that we should replace the name "Chinese yuan" with "Chinese yuan offshore". I also think that we should either not show CNY in the CNH row when you create the new column of official codes or else somehow qualify it. Misha Wolf ( talk) 10:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I've make the changes but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if official code CNY should apply to both CNH and RMB or just one. Or the wording for the clarifying note. I've left "official code" as a dash for those two but it should ultimately be either CNY or n/a. Thanks. DRMcCreedy ( talk) 23:24, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

That's good, thanks. I've tweaked the RMB row. I suggest we leave the CNH (and now also CNT) cells of column "ISO 4217 code" empty for now. Maybe someone else will pitch in with a suggestion. Misha Wolf ( talk) 09:37, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I've taken the plunge and used "n/a", coupled with an explanation. Misha Wolf ( talk) 13:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks good. DRMcCreedy ( talk) 15:23, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

As Gordon pointed out in the previous section, much of this article seems to equate "official" with “from ISO 4217”. Unfortunately, that term is used differently in section X currencies, which speaks of “the ISO 3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X ...”. That section obviously uses the equation “official” = “from ISO 3166”, which can be understood to mean that the X currencies, which only are defined in ISO 4217, are in the “unofficial” corner. Is there any way we can use a more exact and consistent terminology? How about

1. rewording X currencies to something like “the fact that ISO 3166 explicitly defines no country code beginning with X ...”, and
2. using “standard” instead of “official”, when we're talking about ISO 4217? That would avoid ambiguity and make it clear that we're speaking of a standard – in this case, obviously, ISO 4217.

◅  Sebastian 08:20, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

ISO 4217 alphabetic codes are explicitly derived from ISO 3166 codes, in that the first two letters are a valid ISO 3166 code. ISO 3166-1 provides that 2-letter codes in the range XA to XZ (among others) are designated for private use, and ISO 4217 has declared that it will use this range to defined currency codes that cannot be tied to a specific region encoded by ISO 3166. The two final paragraphs of the "X currencies" section are direct paraphrases of information that appear in the ISO 4217 standard. I do not believe rephrasing of these paragraphs is necessary: official currency codes come from ISO 4217, official country codes come from ISO 3166, the user-defined country codes are officially designated as such by ISO 3166, and the non-regional currency codes are officially linked by ISO 4217 to the user-defined country codes in ISO 3166. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 02:06, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be something wrong with the first sentence of this section:

There is also a three-digit code number assigned to each currency, in the same manner as there is also a three-digit code number assigned to each country as part of ISO 3166.

What does "in the same manner as there is also a three-digit code number assigned to each country as part of ISO 3166" mean? Misha Wolf ( talk) 15:23, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It refers to ISO 3166-1 numeric, which has "the same manner" of assigning unique three-digit codes. The analogy may create more confusion than help. Certes ( talk) 15:46, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's what it's trying to say, but it's doing so in (what seems to me to be) an incoherent manner. Misha Wolf ( talk) 15:57, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I've tried to make it clearer. Have I succeeded? Misha Wolf ( talk) 16:07, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, reads much more clearly, thanks. Certes ( talk) 16:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning that the numeric currency codes are explicitly derived from UN M49 codes, where possible, including the 900–999 private use range. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 02:33, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

The first paragraph of Denomination (currency)#Subunit and super unit describes currency subunits in a way that makes sense to me. The way that Template:Infobox currency is being used for United States dollar gives a very different meaning to "currency subunit", as it lists quarter, dime, nickel, cent and mill as subunits of the US dollar. I think that it doesn't make sense for important Wikipedia pages to contradict each other. Before I raise this at Talk:United States dollar, I'd appreciate some feedback here. Thanks. Misha Wolf ( talk) 18:50, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the issue. "Subunit" represents a division of the unit; it is not inherent that there be only one, nor is it even necessary for the subunit to hold legal status. In fact, even the section you link says In some countries, there are multiple levels of subunits.. The infobox is structured to be able to represent all named subunits of a currency. I don't see a problem with its current usage on United States dollar (or anywhere else it uses multiple levels) and I would argue that articles like Pound sterling should have their infoboxes expanded. However, none of this really seems to have anything to do with ISO 4217. This discussion, if it needs to be continued, would probably be better held at WP:NUMIS. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 02:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Page ISO 4217 has a section called ISO 4217#Treatment of minor currency units. That section refers to "minor units of currency" and to "minor currency units". Denomination (currency)#Subunit and super unit uses the term "currency subunit". While we have to use the ISO 4217 term(s) when we are quoting from the standard I think that, when not quoting from the standard, we should use terms which are consistent with the rest of Wikipedia and will make sense to readers. In particular, I propose that we rename ISO 4217#Treatment of minor currency units to Treatment of currency subunits. Thanks. Misha Wolf ( talk) 19:04, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

These two pages are not necessarily a representative sample of terminology usage across Wikipedia. To come to a conclusion about that, I think a discussion at WP:NUMIS or MOS:CURRENCY might be more fruitful. For the contents of ISO 4217 specifically, I think it would be more confusing if we use one term when quoting from the standard and another term when talking about it. I think it would be more appropriate to explicitly describe them as equivalent and then use context to determine the appropriate term to use. (FWIW, I don't personally find them confusing.) — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 02:27, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

The lede paragraph says:

ISO 4217 is a standard first published by International Organization for Standardization in 1978, which delineates currency designators, country codes (alpha and numeric), and references to minor units in three tables:

I have the following questions:

• What are "currency designators" and where does ISO 4217 delineate them?
• Why does the paragraph include country codes when those are not within the scope of ISO 4217?
• Conversely, why does it not include currency codes (alpha and numeric)? Or is that what is meant here by "currency designators"? If so, please let us Call a spade a spade.
• Where does ISO 4217 "delineate [...] references to minor units"?

Thanks. Misha Wolf ( talk) 23:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I've fixed the problems. Misha Wolf ( talk) 17:12, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I have sent the following feedback to the ISO 4217 Maintenance Agency:

Dear ISO 4217 MA,

The Wikipedia article on ISO 4217 [1] mentions two anomalies in ISO 4217 List one. Though they relate to two different currencies, the anomalies are identical. The two currencies are the Malagasy Ariary (MGA) [2] and the Mauritanian Ouguiya (MRU) [3]. In both cases, the Minor unit column contains "2". In fact, both currencies have minor units which have a fifth (ie 1/5) of the value of the currency itself.

As ISO 4217 doesn't have a mechanism for representing a 5:1 relationship between a currency and its minor unit, the appropriate value to show in the Minor unit column would be "1" as a single digit after the decimal point is required to represent the value of one of these minor units.

[1] /info/en/?search=ISO_4217
[2] /info/en/?search=Malagasy_ariary
[3] /info/en/?search=Mauritanian_ouguiya

Misha Wolf ( talk) 00:54, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I have received the following reply from the ISO 4217 Maintenance Agency:

Thank you for your request.

I can provide following feedback:

• Madagascar:   Banque Centrale de Madagascar confirms there is no change to the minor unit of MGA.  It still remains as TWO minor units
• Mauritania:      Please, see Amendment Newsletter number 165. Minor unit “2” has also been confirmed by the Central Bank.

https://www.currency-iso.org/dam/downloads/dl_currency_iso_amendment_165.pdf

Many thanks for your understanding.

Though the information for these two currencies in ISO 4217's Minor unit field appears to be wrong, it seems that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get anyone to correct it. Sigh. Misha Wolf ( talk) 15:42, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. I suspect that ISO and the Bank may have interpreted the unclear question "Minor unit?" differently; perhaps the Bank means that there are two units (the major and the minor). Certes ( talk) 16:32, 2 November 2020 (UTC)