Kazakhstani tenge

History

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, attempts were made by most republics to maintain a common currency. Some politicians were hoping to at least maintain "special relations" among former Soviet republics, or the "near abroad". Other reasons were the economic considerations for maintaining the ruble zone. The wish to preserve strong trade relations between former Soviet republics was considered the most important goal.

The break-up of the Soviet Union was not accompanied by any formal changes in monetary arrangements. The Central Bank of Russia was authorized to take over the State Bank of the USSR (Gosbank) on 1 January 1992. It continued to ship USSR ruble notes and coins to the central banks of the fourteen newly independent countries, which had formerly been the main branches of Gosbank in the republics.

The political situation, however, was not favorable for maintaining a common currency. Maintaining a common currency requires a strong political consensus in respect to monetary and fiscal targets, a common institution in charge of implementing these targets, and some minimum of common legislation (concerning the banking and foreign exchange regulations). These conditions were far from being met amidst the turbulent economic and political situation.

During the first half of 1992, a monetary union with 15 independent states all using the ruble existed. Since it was clear that the situation would not last, each of them was using its position as "free-riders" to issue huge amounts of money in the form of credit. As a result, some countries were issuing coupons in order to "protect" their markets from buyers from other states. The Russian central bank responded in July 1992 by setting up restrictions to the flow of credit between Russia and other states. The final collapse of the ruble zone began when Russia pulled out with the exchange of banknotes by the Central bank of Russia on Russian territory at the end of July 1993.

As a result, Kazakhstan and other countries still in the ruble zone were "pushed out". On November 12, 1993, a decree of the President of Kazakhstan, "About introducing national currency of Republic of Kazakhstan", was issued. The tenge was introduced on 15 November 1993 to replace the Soviet ruble at a rate of 1 tenge = 500 rubles. In 1991 a "special group" of designers was created: Mendybay Alin, Timur Suleymenov, Asimsaly Duzelkhanov and Khayrulla Gabzhalilov. As such, November 15 is celebrated as the "Day of National Currency of Republic of Kazakhstan". In 1995, a tenge printing factory was opened in Kazakhstan. The first consignment of tenge was printed abroad, in the UK. The first coins were minted in Germany.

Etymology

The word tenge in the Kazakh and most other Turkic languages means a set of scales (cf the old Uzbek tenga or the Tajik borrowed term tanga). The origin of the word is the Turkic teŋ- which means being equal, balance. The name of this currency is thus similar to the lira, pound and peso. The name of the currency is related to the Russian word for money Russian: деньги / den'gi, which was borrowed from Turkic.

Symbol

In autumn 2006, the National Bank of Kazakhstan organized a competition for the symbol of the Kazakhstan Tenge and received over 30,000 applications. On March 20, 2007, two days before the Nauryz holiday, the National Bank of Kazakhstan approved a graphical symbol for the Tenge: ₸. On March 29, 2007, the Bank announced two designers from Almaty, Vadim Davydenko and Sanzhar Amirkhanov, as winners for the creation of the symbol of the Kazakhstan Tenge. They shared a prize of 1 million tenge and the title of "parents" of the Kazakhstan Tenge symbol. The character was proposed for encoding in Unicode in 2008, and was included in Unicode 5.2.0 (August 2009) at code point U+20B8.

Coins

While older coins were struck in Germany, current coins are struck domestically, by the Kazakhstan Mint in Oskemen.

First series (1993)

In 1993, the first series of coins were introduced in denominations of 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 tiyin featuring the national arms and were struck in bronze. 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 tenge were struck in cupro-nickel and depicted stylized and mythical animals. The coins of this period circulated alongside tiyin and low denomination tenge notes of equal value.

Second series (1995)

In 1998, a new series of coins was introduced, which excluded the tiyin having 1 tenge being the smallest denomination. 100 tenge were later introduced in 2002 replacing the equivalent notes. An irregular 2 tenge coin was also introduced later in 2005. In 2013 the alloy of lower denomination coins was altered. Coins currently in circulation are:

Commemorative coins

Commemorative coins are issued in denominations of 20, 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 tenge. Silver and gold bullion coins exist in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 tenge. Many of the 20 and 50 tenge commemorative's are also struck in cupro-nickel and occasionally make it out into general circulation as a side coinage with face value.

Exchange rates and inflation

On September 2, 2013 the National Bank of Kazakhstan moved the Kazakhstan Tenge from a managed float and pegged it to the U.S. dollar and Russian ruble.

On February 11, 2014, the Kazakh National Bank chose to devalue the tenge by 19% against the U.S. dollar in response to a weakening of the Russian ruble.

On August 20, 2015, The Kazakhstan National Bank has done away with the currency band with respect to conversion rate of Tenge. Now, the Tenge is a free-floating currency and its exchange rate against the major currencies are determined by demand and supply in the market. Due to this change, the currency Tenge lost its value by 30% in a single day.