Hong Kong Dollar
Currency

Introduction

The base currency unit is the Hong Kong Dollar. This is used in almost 25 economies and is widely used in the world. There are other territories including the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Cook Islands, etc also using currencies in dollars.

However, the important currency is the Hong Kong Dollar. Hong Kong dollar is denoted with ‘$’ sign as ‘HK$’.

This became official in 1937 and ‘cent’ is the subunit of this currency. As per ISO standards, HKD is the currency code and 344 the numeric code.

Overview

Hong Kong is a region of china, but do not use the same currencies.

The territory has given full freedom in the currency context. The Hong Kong dollar is associated since 1983 to the United States dollar; though earlier it was with British pounds. It is being controlled to issue currency by a currency board system that states that the bank will issue Hong Kong dollars only when it has equal amounts of US dollars in exchange.

This helps in maintaining the support from the US dollars that has the largest reserves in the globe. However, Hong Kong depends entirely on the foreign trade to have a stable currency and conversely the export and import in Hong Kong is free for all the currencies.

Configuration

Identical to all dollar currencies, Hong Kong dollar has ‘cent’ as its subunit. Hong Kong Monetary Authority manages the currency by supervising three authorized banks before the circulation and issuance of currency namely, the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank, the Bank of China and the Standard Chartered Bank.

This is the reason that the banknotes come in 3 different series and circulate simultaneously. The banknotes are in 6 denominations $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000.

The $10 note was not issued by the BOC though it had a daily usage and recently, a $10 note was printed and issued by the government to satisfy public demand.

The images in the series of HSBC are $10- Junk and container ship, $20- Victoria peak and Bauhinia blakeana, $50-Po Lin temple and Lion, $100- Lantau link, $500- International airport and Lion and $1000-Victoria harbor and black kite.

The series of BOC are $20-peak tower, $50- Tsim sha Tsui waterfront and space museum with Hong Kong cultural center, $100- Lion and Tsing Ma Bridge, $500- International airport, $1000- Central Plaza, Wan hai Waterfront and HKCEC. The series of SCB are $10-Chinese dragon headed carp, $20- Chinese dragon headed carp and Hong Kong 1850 image, $50 - Chinese dragon headed Turtle with Hong Kong 1890 image, $100 - Oilin with Hong Kong 1930 image, $500 - Fenghuang and Hong Kong 1970 image and $1000 - Chinese dragon with Hong Kong 2000 image.

The coinage denominations are 10, 20, 50 cents and $1, $2, $5 and $10.