Mexican peso (MXN)

The most popular currency in Latin America, Mexican peso together with Israeli shekel became freely convertible in 2008.

History of the Mexican peso

The history of the peso is connected with the appearance of Spanish colonizers in the Aztec country. For Mexico, which became a part of the Spanish Empire, the so called Spanish dollaralso referred to as the real. Peso began as the largest silver coin, equal to eight reals. According to that monetary system, the basic monetary unit was the escudo, which contained 16 reals. It is a curious fact that the first peso had the modern symbol of the American dollar, i.e. $. Some historians attribute the reason for this to the then-accepted abbreviation of the peso as ps, with the "p" gradually hypertrophied into a vertical line.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the peso had established itself as Mexico's main currency and began to be issued in banknote form. The gold content of the coins was reduced by half, but the silver backing remained unchanged until 1977, thanks to the many mines in the Central American country.

Default and the new peso

For most of the twentieth century. Mexican peso The Mexican state defaulted on its foreign debt, and the country experienced hyperinflation and exponentially increasing currency devaluation.

A way out of the situation was found only in 1993, when the government adopted a new peso, now denominated N$ and changing its international code from MXP to MXN. Subsequently, the word "new" was removed from the name. Due to Mexico's economic recovery and stability in recent decades, the peso has made the list of the 15 most traded currencies world currencies.

Mexican peso denominations

The Mexican peso is equal to 100 centavos. There are banknotes of 1000, 500, 200, 100, 50 and 20 Mexican pesos in circulation, as well as coins in denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 5, 2, 1 peso, 50, 20, 10 and 5 centavos. International designation pesos - MXN.

Example of the Mexican peso