The Colombian Peso is the official currency of the Republic of Colombia. The official abbreviation for this currency is COP, but it is often also called COL $. The circulation of the Colombian peso is controlled by the Bank of the Republic of Colombia. In 2017, a coin with the lowest value of 50 pesos ($ 50) was minted and tickets with the highest value of 100 thousand pesos ($ 100,000) were issued.
Appearance story
Peso became a Colombian coin in 1810. In 1837, the peso began to replace the real. Then for one peso they gave 8 reais. In 1847, Colombia revised the issue of the value of the peso, which began to be valued at 10 reais. In 1853, the real was renamed Desimo, which from the Spanish language means "a tenth."
At present, the peso has a value of 100 centavas (from the Spanish language, centavo is the hundredth part). The centavo currency appeared in Colombia as early as 1819, but it began to be used on paper money tickets only in the early 1860s. The first coins worth 1 centavo began to be issued in the country only in 1872.
The historical development of the Colombian currency and its position in the international market
In 1871, Colombia adopted the gold standard for its currency, linking the peso with the French franc. The course of the Colombian peso to the franc at that time was 1: 5. However, in 1880, during the presidency of Rafael Nunez, the National Bank of the Republic of Colombia was created, which began to issue a running coin. In 1888, she experienced severe inflation.
To solve this problem, in 1903, the government of Jose Manuel Marroquin established the establishment of the Depreciation deductions Council, which was to convert the running coin into a golden peso. Subsequently, the government of Rafael Reyes created the Central Bank, which continued the activities of the Council for Depreciation and linked the peso to the British pound at the exchange rate of 5: 1, respectively. From this period, the Central Bank begins to print tickets, dubbed the Golden Peso.
US influence on the development of the Colombian currency
After World War I, Colombia faces serious problems with its own currency. The government of President Pedro Nel Ospina in 1922 asks for help from the United States, which began to conduct an economic mission in Colombia, called the "Kemmerer mission." The main organizer and leader was the American economist Edwin Walter Kemmerer, on the recommendation of which in 1923 the Bank of the Republic of Columbia was created, which continues to perform its functions to this day.
In 1931, Great Britain abandoned the gold standard, and Colombia tied the peso to the US currency. At that time, the exchange rate of the Colombian peso to the dollar was 1.05: 1. This rate lasted until 1949, when the next inflation of the Colombian currency began.
Tickets issued by the Bank of the Republic of Colombia continued to be called the golden peso until 1993, when Senator Pavlo Victoria, in his address to the Council of State, proposed removing the word “golden” from the name of cash tickets.
Colombian coins
Currently, coins of 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 pesos circulate in Colombia. Coins of 1,000 pesos, which were popular from 1996 to 2002, gradually began to lose their value due to their frequent counterfeiting. As a result, these coins ceased to mint, and replaced them with cash tickets of the same value. Although the 1000 peso coin has not yet been withdrawn from circulation, it is now very difficult to meet it in Colombia.
In 1998, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, the Bank of the Republic of Columbia issued 5,000 pesos. However, due to their small batch and high cost, they practically do not circulate in the country.
In 2006, coins of 20 Colombian pesos appeared, but they quickly went out of circulation, since all minimum prices were rounded to 50 pesos.
In 2007, coins of 50 pesos were minted from nickel-plated steel, instead of nickel silver alloy, for the production of which significant economic costs were required. However, in 2008, they returned to the minting of nickel silver coins.
On February 9, 2009, the Bank of the Republic of Colombia announced the termination of minting of coins worth 5, 10 and 20 Colombian pesos, since they are practically not used in monetary transactions.
Design change
On July 13, 2012, the release of Colombian coins with a new design, which reflect the national fauna and flora, begins. At the same time, the nominal value of the coins remained unchanged, that is, 50, 100, 200 and 500 pesos. A coin of 1,000 Colombian pesos also began to be issued again. Not only the design of the coins has changed, but also the alloy from which they were minted. According to the Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Jose, Dario Uriwe, these measures are connected with the desire to reduce costs in the production of metal money.
The front side of the new coins reminds a resident of Colombia of the biological richness of the species of the country in which he lives:
- A 50 peso coin depicts a spectacled bear.
- 100 Colombian pesos - a plant of espeletia.
- 200 pesos - Ara Macau parrot.
- 500 pesos - a glass frog.
- 1000 pesos - loggerhead turtle.
On a coin with a face value of 1000 there are words: “take care of the water” on the front side of the coin and “water” on the reverse side. In addition, the image of the waves is applied to all coins.
Cash tickets
As for the paper currency of Colombia, it should be said that on October 16, 1994, an organized group of criminals stole from the Bank of the Republic more than 24 billion Colombian pesos. Among the stolen amount there were rare tickets in denominations of 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 pesos. The Bank knew a series of issues for these notes, therefore, issued a special list in which they were declared as having no value. As a result, after the theft, Colombians during each monetary transaction looked at each banknote so as not to accidentally receive a stolen banknote.
To solve the problem with stolen money, the Bank of the Republic began to issue banknotes with a value of 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 pesos with a new design. To speed up the process of replacing old money with new, he began to conduct a company to withdraw from circulation all old bills.
In 1997, blue tickets with the image of Simon Bolivar worth 1,000 pesos left the circulation. They were replaced with coins of similar value. However, they were similar in their execution to coins of 100 Colombian pesos, so they were massively counterfeited. As a result, a 1000-peso bill was returned to circulation, but it now depicts a Colombian lawyer, writer and politician Jorge Eléser Gaitán.
Until 2006, all Colombian cash tickets were the same size (14x7 cm). From November 17, 2006, the release of banknotes in denominations of 1000 and 2000 pesos begins, which have the same design but smaller size (13x6.5 cm).
New paper money
In the first half of 2016, Colombia began to issue new banknotes. A feature of their release was a ticket with a face value of 100,000 pesos, which is decorated with a portrait of Carlos Yeras Restrepo. This is the former president of Colombia. New banknotes have the same face value as the old ones, with the exception of 1000 pesos. This bill was replaced by the corresponding coin.
The reason for issuing new tickets is associated with increased efficiency and security of cash transactions, as well as with the popularization of the biological diversity of Colombia's nature, its culture and national symbols. So, on cash tickets appeared the faces of the following distinguished Colombian figures:
- 50 thousand pesos - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia's first Nobel Prize in literature).
- 20 thousand pesos - Alfonso Lopez Michelsen (51 President of Colombia).
- 20 thousand pesos - a cultural symbol of the nation hat "sombrero vueltiao".
Colombian peso exchange rates to ruble, dollar and euro
The Colombian currency, like any other, constantly changes its course to the main world monetary units, which depends on the state of the world, regional and national economy.
The exchange rate of the Colombian peso to the dollar, the ruble and the euro is presented in the following table.
| currency | 1 dollar | 1 euro | 1 ruble |
| COP | 2 857.3499 | 3 349.1930 | 46.5064 |
The table shows that 1 peso is estimated at approximately 0.0004 dollars and 0.0003 euros. The course of the Colombian peso to the ruble for today is as follows: 1 peso = 0.0215 rubles.
According to the dynamics reflected in the cash charts for the last year, the currency of Colombia is quite stable against the dollar and the euro. Its annual changes amounted to no more than 2-3%.
Change in the value of the currency of Colombia
Over the past decade, the Colombian government has been proposing projects to change the value of cash tickets, that is, the need to "remove extra zeros." At the moment, all of these projects have been rejected.
The reason for this monetary reform is that the Colombian peso against the ruble is quite high, not to mention the dollar and the euro. Therefore, in 2016, with the release of new banknotes in Colombia, it was decided to print “100 thousand pesos” instead of the inscription “100,000 pesos” (in Spanish it is “100 mil peso”), to subsequently remove the word “thousand” without changing the design the bill itself.