Currency Trading
Freely convertible currencies have immediate value on the foreign exchange market, and few restrictions on the manner and amount that can be traded for another currency. Free convertibility is a major feature of a hard currency.
Some countries pass laws restricting the legal exchange rates of their currencies, or requiring permits to exchange more than a certain amount. Some currencies, such as the North Korean won, the Transnistrian ruble and the Cuban national peso, are officially nonconvertible and can only be exchanged on the black market. If an official exchange rate is set, its value on the black market is often lower.
Convertibility controls may be introduced as part of an overall monetary policy. For example, restrictions on the Argentine peso were introduced during an economic crisis in the 1990s, and scrapped in 2002 during a subsequent crisis.
Read more about this topic: Convertibility
Famous quotes containing the words currency and/or trading:
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“His farm was “grounds,” and not a farm at all;
His house among the local sheds and shanties
Rose like a factor’s at a trading station.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)