When India announced that it will implement a unique symbol for the Indian Rupee in world financial markets Thursday, the arcane subject of currency symbols became a hot topic. The Indian rupee had no currency symbol before, simply the abbreviations Rs, Re, or INR. On June 24, the symbol, a hybrid of the Roman letter R and its Hindi equivalent accentuated with a double slash, will be finalized by India’s Union Cabinet. Implementing the new rupee symbol may take a few years and is bound to cost billions of dollars, based on the recent implementation of the Euro symbol. Resource for this article – India seeks elite status with new currency symbol for the rupee by Personal Money Store.
The rise of the rupee warrants a new currency symbol
World financial markets had no way to identify the currency of India, which is the second largest democracy within the world. As reported within the Deccan Chronicle, the new rupee symbol was selected as the winner of a design competition to create a mark that reflected the historic culture of India. Indian official said the use of abbreviated Rs as currency symbols by neighbors like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan cause confusion in world financial markets and also the new rupee symbol will end that confusion. Giving the rupee a distinct identity will even make it more easily tradeable in the west as India aspires to become a financial superpower.
Indian government seeking elite status
Until now unique currency symbols existing only for the U.S. dollar, European Euro, British Pound, and Japanese Yen. The introduction of the new rupee symbol, the BBC reports, is a statement by India that it is one of the world’s elite economies. A panel of artists, officials and bankers picked the new rupee symbol design from up to 36,000 entries within the contest. A design from a design teacher at the Indian Institute of Technology was declared the winner. The winning prize was Rs 2.5 lakh which is about $ 5,350.
Euro symbol’s welcome cost billions
Its expensive to implement a new currency, according to experts. Suite 101 reports that it is extremely difficult to design because it involves rigorous testing across a wide range of technical applications like the web, banners, and mobile phones. Plus, it needs to be adaptable to computer keyboards and a large investment is required to print a new banknote design. When the euro symbol was introduced in 1999, the BBC article said, Europe’s biggest companies had to update computer systems to the tune of more than $ 50 billion.
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deccanchronicle.com
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