Increasing status of India shown in new currency symbol for rupee

The arcane subject of currency symbols became a hot topic Thursday when India announced that it will implement a unique symbol for the Indian Rupee in world financial markets. Until now, there has been no currency symbol for the Indian rupee, just the abbreviation Rs, Re, or INR. The symbol, a composite of the Roman letter R and its Hindi equivalent accented with two slashes, can be finalized June 24 by India’s Union Cabinet. Based on Europe’s recent experience with the Euro symbol, integrating the new rupee symbol could take a couple of years and cost many billions of dollars.

Rising utility of the rupee earns it a currency symbol

World financial markets had no way to identify the currency of India, which is the second largest democracy in the world. The Deccan Chronicle reports that a design contest with the purpose of creating a currency symbol evoking the history and culture of India selected the new rupee symbol. Confusion in world financial markets by neighboring countries that use abbreviated Rs for their currency symbol will end with the new rupee symbol, Indian officials said. The rupee may also be more tradeable within the west with a distinct identity as India strives to become one of the world’s financial leaders.

Will elite club of currencies welcome the rupee?

Unique currency symbols presently exist only for the U.S. dollar, European euro, British pound and Japanese yen. The BBC reports that with its new rupee symbol, the Indian government is declaring itself a member in this elite class of world economies. The rupee symbol contest attracted up to 36,000 entries that a panel of artists, officials and bankers selected from. 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 introduction cost billions

Its costly to implement a new currency, according to experts. Suite 101 reports that testing the symbol for technical applications like the web, banners and mobile phones is rigorous and difficult. Plus, it needs to be adaptable to computer keyboards and a large investment is required to print a new banknote design. The BBC article pointed out that to update computer systems to deal with the new euro symbol cost them upwards of $ 50 billion.

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deccanchronicle.com

bbc.co.uk

suite101.com