Major Currencies of the World

When we talk about the world’s major currencies, we most often restrict ourselves to the United States Dollar and Euro. There is absolutely no doubt about the fact that these two currencies are used widely when it comes to transactions all over the world today, but that doesn’t mean these are the only widely used currencies of the world. If you intend to find out which are the major currencies of the world, the right place to look out for is the foreign exchange market. Abbreviated as forex or FX, foreign exchange market is an international over-the-counter financial institution which deals in currency trading. This is the right place to figure out which are the major currencies of the world as it keeps a track of currency trading across the world.

World’s Major Currencies 2010

Simply put, major currencies are those currencies which are traded extensively all over the world. The term currency exchange or foreign exchange involves buying and selling of various currencies. In order to facilitate trading of major currencies, pairs of these currencies are created. A currency pair is a simple quotation which compares the currency of one nation with that of another. While the currency which is used as reference is known as ‘quote currency’, that which is used in relation is known as the ‘base currency’. That being said, almost all the major currencies of the world are traded in pairs. Given below is a list of the world’s major currencies as of today along with their country of origin, currency code, and comparison with the US Dollar.

Currency	Currency Code*	Nation	In USD**
United States dollar	USD ($)	USA	1
Euro	EUR (€)	Europe Union	0.75
Japanese yen	JPY (¥)	Japan	83.87
Pound sterling	GBP (£)	United Kingdom	0.63
Australian dollar	AUD ($)	Australia	1.02
Swiss franc	CHF (Fr)	Switzerland	0.98
Canadian dollar	CAD ($)	Canada	1.01
Hong Kong dollar	HKD ($)	Hong Kong	7.76
Swedish kronor	SEK (kr)	Sweden	6.91
New Zealand dollar	NZD ($)	New Zealand	1.33

*The currency code – technically referred to as the ISO 4217 code, is basically a three letter ISO certification code allotted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in order to define currencies that are in circulation the world over today. While the country code is used to denote the first two letters of this code, the third letter is an initial of the currency itself. In case of the US Dollar, the three letter code is USD wherein the first two letters ‘US’ depict the country code for the United States of America and D represents the ‘dollar’.