Alphabetic code

The alphabetic code is based on another ISO standard, ISO 3166, which lists the codes for country names. The first two letters of the ISO 4217 three-letter code are the same as the code for the country name, and, where possible, the third letter corresponds to the first letter of the currency name.

For example:

• The US dollar is represented as USD – the US coming from the ISO 3166 country code and the D for dollar.
• The Swiss franc is represented by CHF – the CH being the code for Switzerland in the ISO 3166 code and F for franc.

Numeric code

The three-digit numeric code is useful when currency codes need to be understood in countries that do not use Latin scripts and for computerized systems. Where possible, the three-digit numeric code is the same as the numeric country code.

For currencies having minor units, ISO 4217:2015 also shows the relationship between the minor unit and the currency itself (i.e. whether it divides into 100 or 1000).

ISO 4217:2015 also describes historical codes in List 3, as well as the codes representing certain funds in List 2.
 

Maintaining ISO 4217

Periodically, amendments must be made to ISO 4217:2015 and these are managed by the Secretariat of the Maintenance Agency, in this case the SIX Financial Information AG on behalf of the Swiss Association for Standardization, SNV.

More details on how to contact SIX Financial Information AG can be found in the list of Maintenance Agencies.