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Chilean peso

The peso is the currency of Chile. The current peso has circulated since 1975, with a previous version circulating between 1817 and 1960. Its symbol is defined as a letter S with either one or two vertical bars superimposed prefixing the amount,[1] $ or ; the single-bar symbol, available in most modern text systems, is almost always used. Both of these symbols are used by many currencies, most notably the United States dollar, and may be ambiguous without clarification, such as CLP$ or US$. The ISO 4217 code for the present peso is CLP. It was divided into 100 centavos until 31 May 1996, when the subdivision was formally eliminated (requiring payments to be made in whole pesos). In July 2024, the exchange rate was around CLP940 to US$1.[2]

Chilean peso
Peso (Spanish)
ISO 4217
CodeCLP (numeric: 152)
Unit
Symbol$‎
Denominations
Banknotes1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 pesos
Coins10, 50, 100, 500 pesos
Demographics
Date of introduction29 September 1975
ReplacedChilean escudo
User(s) Chile
Issuance
Central bankBanco Central de Chile
 Websitewww.bcentral.cl
MintCasa de Moneda
 Websitewww.casamoneda.cl
Valuation
Inflation4.4%
 Source2024 ([1])
ValueExchange Rate
1 USD = 940 CLP ([2])

The current peso was introduced on 29 September 1975 by decree 1,123, replacing the escudo at a rate of 1 peso for 1,000 escudos. This peso was subdivided into 100 centavos until 1984.

Coins

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Coins of the Chilean peso in circulation
Main article: Coins of the Chilean peso

In 1975, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 5, 10, and 50 centavos and 1 peso. The 1, 5, and 10 centavo coins were very similar to the 10, 50, and 100 escudo coins they replaced. Since 1983, inflation has left the centavo coins obsolete. 5 and 10 peso coins were introduced in 1976, followed by 50 and 100 peso coins in 1981 and by a bi-metallic 500 peso coin in 2000. Coins currently in circulation are in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500 pesos; however, as of 2016 the value of the peso has depreciated enough that most retailers and others tend to use prices that are multiples of 10 pesos, ignoring smaller amounts. The 1 peso coin is rare. On 26 October 2017 the Mint stopped producing 1 and 5 peso coins, and started accepting those coins directly at the mint to exchange for larger denomination. On 1 November 2017 commercial entities began rounding off amounts for payment in cash, rounding down for amounts ending in 1 through 5 pesos, rounding up for amounts ending in 6 through 9 pesos. Electronic transactions and cheques are not affected. This change has affected various charities which had programs to accept donations at the cash register.[3]

 
Obverse of 10 peso coin under military dictatorship

Right after the military dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990) ended, the obverse designs of the 5 and 10 peso coins were changed. Those coins had borne the image of a winged female figure wearing a classical robe and portrayed as if she had just broken a chain binding her two hands together (a length of chain could be seen hanging from each of her wrists); beside her appear the date of the coup d'état Roman numerals and the word LIBERTAD (Spanish for "liberty"). After the return of democracy, a design with the portrait of Bernardo O'Higgins was adopted.

In 2001, a newly redesigned 100-peso coin bearing the image of a Mapuche woman began to circulate. In February, 2010, it was discovered that on the 2008 series of the 50 peso coins the country name CHILE had been misspelled as CHIIE. The national mint said that it did not plan to recall the coins. Worth about US$0.09 each at the time, the faulty coins became collectors' items.[4]

Banknotes

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The discontinued $500 bill, together with Chilean notes currently in circulation

In 1976, banknotes were introduced in denominations of 5, 10, 50, and 100 pesos with the reverses of the two lowest denominations resembling those of the 5000- and 10,000-escudo notes they replaced. Inflation has since led to the issue of much higher denominations. Five-hundred-peso notes were introduced in May, 1977, followed by the 1000-peso (in June, 1978), 5000-peso (June, 1981), 10,000-peso (June, 1989), 2000-peso (December, 1997), and 20,000-peso (December, 1998) notes. The 5, 10, 50, 100, and 500-peso banknotes have been replaced by coins, leaving only the 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000, and 20,000 peso notes in circulation. Redesigned versions of the four highest denominations were issued in 2009 and 2010. The popular new 1000-peso banknote was issued on 11 May 2011.[5]

Since September 2004, the 2000-peso note has been issued only as a polymer banknote; the 5000-peso note began emission in polymer in September 2009; and the 1000-peso note was switched to polymer in May, 2011. This was the first time in Chilean history that a new family of banknotes was put into circulation for other cause than the effects of inflation. As of January 2012, only the 10,000 and 20,000 peso notes are still printed on cotton paper. All new notes have the same 70 mm (2.8 in) height, while their length varies in 7 mm (0.28 in) steps according to their face values: the shortest is the 1000-peso note and the longest is the 20,000-pesos.[6] The new notes are substantially more difficult to falsify because of new security measures.

The design and production of the whole new family of banknotes was assigned to the Australian company Note Printing Australia Ltd for the 1000, 2000 and 5000 peso notes, and the Swedish company Crane AB for the 10,000 and 20,000 peso notes[5]

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Colloquial Chilean Spanish has informal names for some banknotes and coins. These include luca for a thousand pesos, quina for five hundred pesos (quinientos is Spanish for "five hundred"), and gamba ("prawn") for one hundred pesos (or more recently 100,000 pesos). These names are old: For example, gamba and luca applied to 100 and 1000 escudos before 1975. The term gamba is a reference to the color of one hundred pesos banknote issued between 1933 and 1959.

Depending on context, a gamba might mean one hundred pesos or one hundred thousand pesos. For instance a new computer might be said to cost two gambas.[citation needed] This means two hundred thousand pesos. Less commonly, this applies to luca, taken to mean one million, usually referred to as palo.[citation needed]

The cover of the 2007 Velvet Revolver album Libertad features a stylized version of the angel from the Pinochet-era 10 pesos coin. Guitarist Slash, who personally chose the image, claimed he had no idea of the significance of it at the time.

Value of the peso against the United States dollar

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Current Chilean pesos per United States dollar (1975–2011). Note: The chart shows averages for the year. as well as monthly averages from 1984 onwards.
Average value of US$1[7]
Date Chilean pesos
June 2024 927
May 2024 918
April 2024 961
March 2024 968
February 2024 964
January 2024 908
6-month average 941
2023 840
2022 874
2021 760
2020 793
2019 703
2018 641
2017 650
2016 677
2015 655
2010 511
2005 560
2000 539
1995 397
1990 305
1985 161

Between 1974 and 1979, the Chilean peso was allowed to float within a crawling band.[8] From June 1979 to 1982 the peso was pegged to the United States dollar at a fixed exchange rate.[9] In June 1982, during that year's economic crisis, the peso was devalued and different exchange rate regimes were used.[8][10] In August 1984 the peso returned to a system of crawling bands, which were periodically adjusted to reflect differences between external and internal inflation.[10]

Starting in September 1999, the Chilean peso was allowed to float freely against the United States dollar for the first time. Chile's Central Bank, however, reserved the right to intervene, which it did on two occasions to counter excessive depreciation: the first, in August and September 2001, coincided with Argentina's convertibility crisis and with the September 11 attacks in the United States. The second, in October 2002, was during Brazil's presidential election.[11]

During the first months of the Presidency of Gabriel Boric, the US dollar began to have a strong appreciation against the Chilean peso, among the reasons was the very strong drop in the raw material of Copper, in addition to political and economic instability due to the rise of the cost of living reaching its highest level in 20 years of 2-digit inflation of 14.1%, also due to uncertainty about the arrival of the 2022 Chilean constitutional referendum that would take place a few months later between approval and rejection and the discouraging economic figures in China led the dollar to exceed the figure of 1000 pesos for the first time in its history, reaching a price of more than 1050 pesos per dollar; after that, the Central Bank of Chile carried out its largest exchange intervention in the market, intervening on Thursday, July 14, 2022, for an amount of up to US$25,000 million starting on Monday, July 18, 2022 and until September 30. of 2022.[12]

During 2023, the dollar has had a strong devaluation that was quoted at approximately 780 Pesos per dollar. On Friday, July 28, 2023, the Central Bank of Chile announced the strongest drop since 2009 in the monetary policy rate with a drop substantial 100 basic points from 11.25% to 10.25%, which led the dollar to have a strong rise as there began to be greater access to loans and as time deposits were not profitable, they led to reaching 860 pesos per dollar.[13]

Current CLP exchange rates
From Google Finance: AUD CAD CHF CNY EUR GBP HKD JPY USD INR BRL ARS
From Yahoo! Finance: AUD CAD CHF CNY EUR GBP HKD JPY USD INR BRL ARS
From XE.com: AUD CAD CHF CNY EUR GBP HKD JPY USD INR BRL ARS
From OANDA: AUD CAD CHF CNY EUR GBP HKD JPY USD INR BRL ARS

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Ley Chile Móvil". Leychile.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 December 2015. "Su símbolo será la letra S sobrepuesta con una o dos líneas verticales y se antepondrá a su expresión numérica."
  2. ^ "Base de Datos Estadísticos (BDE)".
  3. ^ "Instituciones sufren fuerte baja en donaciones del vuelto tras aplicación de ley de redondeo". ADN Radio (adnradio.cl). 29 January 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
  4. ^ "Chilean mint spells country's name wrong on coins". The Daily Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk). 12 February 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Banco Central lanzó nuevo billete de $1.000 y anunció que entrará en circulación el 11 de mayo". La Tercera. 16 March 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  6. ^ "Nuevos Billetes". Nuevosbilletes.cl. Archived from the original on 20 June 2012. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  7. ^ "Banco Central de Chile - Tipos de Cambio". Banco Central de Chile.
  8. ^ a b Roberto Toso C. (April 1983). "El tipo de cambio fijo en Chile: la experiencia en el período 1979–1982" (PDF). Serie de Estudios Económicos (in Spanish). Central Bank of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  9. ^ José de Gregorio R.; Andrea Tokman R.; Rodrigo Valdés (August 2005). "Tipo de Cambio Flexible con Metas de Inflación en Chile: Experiencia y Temas de Interés" (PDF). Documentos de Política Económica Nº 14 – Agosto 2005 (in Spanish). Central Bank of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  10. ^ a b Felipe Morandé L.; Matías Tapia G. (December 2002). "Política cambiaria en Chile: El abandono de la banda y la experiencia de flotación" (PDF). Economía Chilena Volumen 5 – Nº 3 / diciembre 2002 (in Spanish). Central Bank of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 June 2007. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  11. ^ José de Gregorio R.; Andrea Tokman R. (December 2005). "El 'miedo a flotar' y la política cambiaria en Chile" (PDF). Economía Chilena Volumen 8 – Nº 3 / diciembre 2005 (in Spanish). Central Bank of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  12. ^ "Consejo del Banco Central de Chile anuncia programa de intervención cambiaria y provisión preventiva de liquidez en dólares" (in Spanish). Banco Central de Chile. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  13. ^ Financiero, Diario; Vergara, S. Valdenegro y C. "Comienza el nuevo ciclo: Banco Central sorprende con una baja de la tasa de interés de 100 puntos, la mayor desde 2009". Diario Financiero (in Spanish). Retrieved 31 August 2023.

References

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Preceded by:
Chilean escudo
Ratio: 1 peso = 1000 escudos 		Currency of Chile
1975 – 		Succeeded by:
Current
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