Thai baht
The baht is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 satang. Prior to decimalisation, the baht was divided into eight fueang, each of eight at. The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. SWIFT ranked the Thai baht as the 10th-most-frequently used world payment currency as of December 2023.
History
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The Thai baht, like the pound, originated from a traditional unit of mass. Its currency value was originally expressed as that of silver of corresponding weight, and was in use probably as early as the Sukhothai period in the form of bullet coins known in Thai as photduang. These were pieces of solid silver cast to various weights corresponding to a traditional system of units related by simple fractions and multiples, one of which is the baht. These are listed in the following table: Though the coins themselves have names like: solot, siao,'' sik, etc, the formal division of the Thai baht is 1 baht = 8 fueang = 64 at. This means that one baht is divided into eight fueang, and each one fueang is divided into 8 at. Currently, the Thai baht do not employ the at as a subunit, but the at is the current subunit of the Lao kip.
This predecimal system was in use up until 1897, when the decimal system devised by Prince Jayanta Mongkol, in which one baht = 100 satang, was introduced by his half-brother King Chulalongkorn along with the demonetization of silver bullet coins on 28 October 1904 after the end of silver bullet coin production by the opening of Sitthikarn Royal Mint in 1857. However, coins denominated in the old units were issued until 1910, and the amount of 25 satang is still commonly referred to as a salueng, as is the 25-satang coin.
Until 27 November 1902, the baht was fixed on a purely silver basis, with 15 grams of silver to the baht. This caused the value of the currency to vary relative to currencies on a gold standard. From 1856 to 1864, the values of certain foreign silver coins were fixed by law, with 5 baht = 3 Spanish dollar = 7 Indian rupees. Before 1880 the exchange rate was fixed at 8 baht per pound sterling, falling to 10 to the pound during the 1880s.
In 1902, the government began to increase the value of the baht by following all increases in the value of silver against gold but not reducing it when the silver price fell. Beginning at 21.75 baht per pound sterling, the currency rose in value until, in 1908, a fixed peg to the British pound sterling was established of 13 baht per pound. This was revised to 12 baht in 1919 and then, after a period of instability, to 11 baht in 1923. During World War II, the baht was fixed at a value of one Japanese yen on 22 April 1942.
From 1956 until 1973, the baht was pegged to the US dollar at an exchange rate of 20.8 baht = one dollar and at 20 baht = 1 dollar until 1978. A strengthening US economy caused Thailand to re-peg its currency at 25 to the dollar from 1984 until 2 July 1997, when the country was affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The baht was floated and halved in value, reaching its lowest rate of 56 to the dollar in January 1998. It rose to 30 per dollar in January 2021.
The baht was originally known to foreigners by the term tical'', which was used in English language text on banknotes until the series 2 1925.
Currency sub-unit equivalents
*Silver or silver equivalentsCurrency symbol
The currency symbol for the baht is . In 1986, this symbol was given a codepoint for computer use in the Thai Industrial Standard 620-2533, at position 0xDF. This national standard was subsequently subsumed into international standards as ISO/IEC 8859-11. In turn, the ISO 8859 series were transposed into the Unicode standard, where the symbol was allocated the codepoint.The symbol is also used for the Panamanian balboa.
Abbreviation
In Thai usage, the baht is legally abbreviated as บ. according to Section 7 of the Currency Act, B.E. 2501.Bitcoin
For a time, the baht symbol was appropriated by some as a symbol for Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency. Following representations, a separate code point was allocated in Unicode version 10.0.Square katakana
In Unicode 1.0, two codepoints were allocated to the baht, one as the currency symbol in the Thai range and one in the CJK Compatibility block as a square version of the Japanese word for "baht", written in katakana script. The CJK codepoint,, is documented in subsequent versions of the standard as "a mistaken, unused representation" and users are directed to instead. Consequently, only a few computer fonts have any content for this codepoint and its use is deprecated.. However, the reference glyph and the character name correspond to
Historical symbols used before decimalization
Before decimalization, the Siamese government employed Chinese, Latin, Jawi, Devanagari, Khmer and Khom, Lanna, and Burmese scripts in banknotes and coins, as seen. The reason is not clear, though it is a common understanding that it is to ease the facilicitation of trade within Siam. It could also be the case that at the time, the capital, Bangkok was still a multi-cultural city, so as to be more inclusive, the government added various other language onto the currency – though by the second series after the decimalization in the 1900s, the currency was all but monolingual.p=yuán : This character was use during the times of Rama IV to represent baht, though this was phased out by another character which is in partially and informally used today. The only occurrence of this character was in Rama IV's banknote series.
s=铢 : This character was in use from 1868–1925 officially on banknotes to represent baht. It is still in use today unofficially to refer to the Thai baht in general, as in 泰銖 or 泰铢.
s=銭 : This character was in use from 1851–1908 officially on banknotes and coins to represent salueng.
p=fāng : This character was in use from 1851–1908 officially on banknotes and coins to represent fueang.
The notation for these Chinese character are written like they are in Thai, though there is a caveat: it is written right to left, as was the convention back then, so one baht is written 圓壹 or 銖壹, if there are smaller units involved the notation can write like such: 方銭參圓壹 for one baht, three salueng, and one fueang.