Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 May 5

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May 5

All currency rates

Which websites list the latest value of all currencies of all countries of the world? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.110.253.64 (talk) 11:32, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

One is https://www1.oanda.com/currency/converter/. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:34, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I know about currency converter. I was asking about those websites where the currencies are listed according to value. Everyday the value of one country's currency changes compared to Dollar, Euro. I won't have to type the number, they update and rank the currencies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 42.110.253.64 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Commercial enterprises that participate in the foreign exchange market will publish their current exchange prices. For example, in the United States you can use Ameritrade, a major retail-service electronic trading and financial services platform provided by TD Ameritrade, to perform foreign exchange prices at market-rates. When you are logged in to your account, you can see current exchange prices. Similar services are available from almost all major commercial- and retail- financial service providers. If you use a charge-card or card-processing intermediary, like Visa, you may discover that they apply their own basic foreign exchange rate when you swipe a card in a foreign country, and the actual rate may vary depending on your personal or corporate charge-card service plan. If you travel a lot, and swipe cards in a lot of overseas facilities, you will find that the billed amount is converted back to the currency used in your billing location at a continuously-variable rate - it can change minute-by-minute, or it might be averaged and aggregated across a 24-hour or 30-day transaction window, and so on. If you're looking for a reference from a major institution like the European Central Bank or the United States Treasury, they publish ECB "benchmark" or "reference exchange rates" and the United States Treasury Reporting Rates. In case you haven't already noticed by trivially inspecting these rates: all the different organizations publish different rates - there's some subtlety to the market dynamics here. And if you care about the national monetary policy of a different country - let's hypothetically say, India, you'll notice that the Reserve Bank of India only published reference rates to the United States Dollar, and since 2018, they have ceased publishing; that service is outsourced to a private sector firm called the Financial Benchmarks India Ltd. They publish reference rates only between the Indian Rupee and United States Dollar, Euro, Great Britain Pound, and Japanese Yen.

If you're looking for a zero-cost service, you can find foreign exchange rates published on popular websites like... Yahoo Finance. Whether you believe those zero-cost websites, which are at the very least publishing their data on a delay, will probably ultimately depend on how much money you plan to lose in the FOREX marketplace.

These types of service might not be available in all locations or countries ...because... financial transactions are heavily regulated by local and national authorities, especially when they relate to the movement of meaningful amounts of currency across national borders. It actually literally does not matter if your transactions are electronic or if you're stashing paper bills in suitcases and carrying them across the border - you're moving money into and out of the country, and there are tax and legal consequences.

If you commercially exchange currencies on large scales, your broker or corporate finance department probably keeps its own exchange rate sheet.

If you are not already intimately familiar with foreign exchange market dynamics, you can start by reading our article, and you can compare commercial offerings from your favorite financial institution, e-Commerce conglomerate, or even at the currency-exchange booth at the local international airport. To dispel your implicit assumption: there is not a single exchange-rate: there are recommended exchange rates, and commercial players in the market may offer alternative exchange rates based on the specific details of the transaction: When are you moving the money? Where are you moving the money? Why are you moving the money? How are you moving the money? Who is moving the money? These details matter to the exchange-price.

And just to make sure we're not leaving anybody under-educated and left to rot in the dust: although there is a real and actual marketplace of retail foreign exchange trading, foreign exchange fraud is one of the biggest categories of financial crime: lots of people get scammed into losing tons of money really quickly. You might lose money on even the respectable and reputable and legal currency trading platforms - and there are way more fake, phony, illegal scam currency trading platforms where you definitely will lose money. Here is some guidance from the United States Government: Fraud Advisory: Foreign Currency (Forex) Fraud.

Nimur (talk) 16:12, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The forex market trades 24 hours a day and currencies change value every second. All the lists you search for will be out of date. The only reliable way to see real current market data is to have an account with an ECN broker and you'll need to put up a five figure sum for that. Not worth the money just for that. The only other item you can know for sure is the exchange rate your bank puts up for the day for a select few currencies and at which you will always be able to exchange these currencies that day at that bank (but not another day or at another bank).

If you're looking for a list with a bunch of currencies which shows far too many digits behind the decimal point for what is really a ballpark figure, here's one. 89.172.88.15 (talk) 19:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I believe that the OPs "all currencies of all countries of the world" requirement cannot be met even if you pay big bucks to a broker. Does anyone exchange with the North Korean won? There are some for sale on Ebay, but like the Zimbabwean $100 trillion dollar banknote, nobody cares if you counterfeit them, so a real collector would insist on a certificate of authenticity. I got a stack of 1B notes cheap and have given many of my friends and coworkers a billion dollar banknote, making them all billionaires. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:43, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, our article on the foreign relations of North Korea indicates that most of the trade is conducted using Swiss Francs as the unit of exchange.

It has been speculated that to travel to the 2018 Singapore summit, the Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea had to travel by train (to China, and thence by Air China charter-flight), because the Korean state government was unable to muster sufficient mobile currency to purchase jet-fuel for a return-flight - Air Koryo has a very limited range of operation. It turns out that even if you have suitcases full of Swiss Francs, they are actually not accepted at most places - but, the few jet centers that are willing to sell airplane fuel to a jet in obvious North Korean livery probably have to do it under the table anyway. That's not so easy to pull off when you announce your visit to the whole world!

For the second summit in Hanoi, Air China did not sponsor a free flight (... because, well, if you're a national government volunteering to buy jet fuel provided to transport the North Korean nation's chairman, you're sort of conducting currency exchange with North Korea, which might look kind of bad if you're a national government that also holds a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council); so for that trip, "the North Koreans spent an additional two days in Vietnam conducting a bilateral visit with their Vietnamese hosts, and that was followed by a 60-plus-hour train ride through China back to Pyongyang."

Long story short, though - North Korea doesn't pay for its goods using Won: the above-board stuff is paid for using cash instruments, probably in the form of actual paper currency, in denominations of Swiss Francs, Euros, United States Dollars, or other major currencies; and the real exchange - like if you're smuggling oil into North Korea so they can keep their half-dozen airplanes flying on those two or three local air routes - gets bartered for more sinister stuff like methamphetamine that effortlessly makes its way across the border into a country near you.

Nimur (talk) 00:11, 6 May 2020 (UTC)