CFA Franc Currency Converter
West African CFA Franc Currency Converter
Convert West African CFA Franc to Pounds, Pounds to West African CFA Franc, Franc to Euro, Euro to Franc, Convert West African CFA Franc to Dollar, Dollars to Franc
West African CFA Franc
This Currency converter is organised with the West African CFA Franc in mind but it contains the entire currencies of the world arranged by country name – listing the ten most popular currencies first. Special units and precious metals are also listed separately and both alphabetically at the end of the list. You can now convert West African CFA Franc to the currency of any country in the world, you can equally convert any country’s currency to West African CFA Franc, convert currencies of any country to the equivalent of another country’s currency (e.g. convert dollar to Pounds, dollar to euro, pounds to euro, pounds to dollar to yen, etc). It lets you perform currency and foreign exchange rate calculations, using live, up to the minute mid-market currency rates. The rates displayed are the official FOREX rates and not Black Market rates.
Instructions
Type the amount of source currency in the input box. You may include commas and decimal point. Then scroll down to select the source and destination currencies and press “GO!” The results of your conversion will be displayed. Note: An asterisk (*) indicates if currencies are obsolete or being phased out.
About West African CFA franc
The most widely used currency in the west Africa is the West African CFA Franc also known as franc CFA or Franc. With the ISO 4217 code: XOF, it is the most widely used currency in the West Africa, currently being used by eight independent countries. Countries using West African CFA Franc include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The franc is nominally subdivided into 100 centimes but no centime denominations have been issued.
The acronym CFA stands for Communauté financière d’Afrique (“Financial Community of Africa”). The currency is issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, “Central Bank of the West African States”), located in Dakar, Senegal, for the members of the UEMOA (Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine, “West African Economic and Monetary Union”). In 1946 the French established a common West African French currency, the CFA franc (franc de la communauté financière Africaine, or franc of the African financial community). The currency, exchanged at a fixed rate with the French franc, assured that virtually all of France’s decolonizing African territories would continue to bank, invest, and trade with France.
When the CFA franc was introduced, notes issued by the Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique Occidentale in denominations of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 1000 francs were in circulation. 500-franc notes were added in 1946, followed by those of 5,000 francs in 1948. In 1955, the Institut d’Emission de l’A.O.F. et du Togo took over the production of paper money, issuing notes for 50, 100, 500 and 1000 francs.
In 1959, the BCEAO took over the issuance of paper money and reintroduced a 5,000-franc note. With the exception of a few early issues, the notes of the BCEAO carry a letter to indicate the country of issuance. 50-franc notes were last issued in 1959, with 100 francs not issued since 1965. 10,000-franc notes were introduced in 1977, followed by 2,500-franc notes in 1992
In 2004, a new series of notes was introduced in denominations of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 francs, with the 500-franc note having been replaced by a coin the year before. The newer notes contain updated security features and are more modern in design. The change was welcomed because of a perception that the old notes were dirty and disease-ridden (1). The colour of the 5,000-franc note was changed from blue to green.
The English-speaking states of Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, along with the French-speaking state of Guinea, have formed the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) and aims to introduce a common currency, the Eco, on 1 January 2015. Liberia is also set to join this monetary zone, whose ultimate goal is to unite the UEMOA and the WAMZ to form a single West African monetary zone.
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