ISO 4217 in Forex Trading

ISO 4217 is an international standard describing three letter codes to define the names of currencies established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The first two letters of the code are the two letters of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes (which are similar to those used for national top-level domains on the internet) and the third is usually the initial of the currency itself. So Japan's currency code becomes JPY—JP for Japan and Y for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the names dollar, franc and pound being used in dozens of different countries, all with wildly differing values.

The standard also defines the relationship between the major currency unit and any minor currency unit. Often, the minor currency unit has a value that is 1/100 of the major unit, but 1/10 or 1/1000 are also common. Some currencies do not have any minor currency unit at all. Mauritania does not use a decimal division of units, setting 1 ouguiya (UM) = 5 khoums, and Madagascar has 1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja.

ISO 4217 includes codes for not only currencies, but also codes for precious metals (gold, silver, palladium and platinum; normally measured in troy ounces) and certain other entities used in international finance, e.g. Special Drawing Rights. There are also special codes allocated for testing purposes (XTS), and to indicate no currency transactions (XXX). These codes all begin with the letter "X". ISO 3166 never assigns country codes beginning with "X", so ISO 4217 can use "X" codes for non-country-specific currencies without risk of clashing with future country codes.

Supranational currencies, such as the East Caribbean dollar, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO are normally also represented by codes beginning with an "X". However, the Euro is represented by the code EUR; although EU is not an ISO 3166-1 country code, it was used anyway, and in order to do so EU was added to the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list to represent the European Union. The predecessor to the Euro, the European Currency Unit, had the code XEU.

More detail about ISO 4217 can be found on wikipedia.org

The author blog: Marketiva Forex

Steps to Build ISO 9001 Compliant Program

Implementing an ISO 9001 system represents a major effort. However, all of that effort can represent a significant shift for a business - from quantity to quality. And this could make sure your business gets the desired results.

Shift Policy and Procedures Focus to Performance

Developing, implementing and maintaining your ISO 9001 program can be crucial to the core issues of a business. The focus is designed to help:

• Satisfy customer requirements for compliance

• Increase profits with more contracts

• Save money through efficiency

But to do this you need to put a framework in place that spotlights performance and performance improvement.

Get Management System Support

To effectively build a program and meet the requirements, your organization should carry out a strong process:

• Management Decision and Commitment

• Adequate Training and Evaluation

• Compliance with Appropriate Standards

• Audit and Registration

Once you’ve identified your company’s need for compliance, it is essential for top management to get on board. Management can ensure that quality is documented, demonstrable, effective and maintained.

Quality Systems and Procedures

The appropriate personnel should then review the standards for their industry and work to meet those requirements with organized documentation. Personnel can then develop, implement and maintain a set of quality systems and procedures to satisfy the ISO 9001 requirements.

Operations Training and Well-defined Processes

To build a program and meet the requirements, your organization should begin with effective training for how to create well-defined processes. You will first want to learn how to identify the objectives necessary to deliver top results. And then you will be ready to put those processes to work.

Internal Auditor Training

After you’ve implemented the ISO program, you should monitor and measure the processes against your own objectives. You can build an effective management system that objectively shows what you’re doing right and wrong. To learn how, you can take advantage of an Internal Auditor skills class and learn how to bridge the gap and move toward continual performance improvement.

Improve Business Process Performance

With ISO 9001 compliance you can improve the overall process performance of your business. And this can save money while satisfying your customers and increasing profit.

Chris Anderson is currently the managing director of Bizmanualz, Inc. and co-author of policies and procedures manuals, producing the layout, process design and implementation to increase performance. To learn how to increase your business performance, visit: Bizmanualz, Inc.