European Currency Unit : Ask Biography

Currency

ISO 4217 Code

XEU

Official user

European Community
and later the European Union

ERM

Pegged with

The ECU was a basket of currencies

Subunit

Symbol

₠ (rare), ECU or XEU

Coins and Banknotes

Central bank

N/A

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The European Currency Unit (₠ or ECU: -freky, -eneɪˈkjuːlang or spelt out -enˌiːˌsiːˈjuː) was a basket of the currencies of the European Community member states, used as the unit of account of the European Community before being replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999, at parity. The ECU itself replaced the European Unit of Account, also at parity, on 13 March 1979. The European Exchange Rate Mechanism attempted to minimize fluctuations between member state currencies and the ECU. The ECU was also used in some international financial transactions, where its advantage was that securities denominated in ECUs provided investors with the opportunity for foreign diversification without reliance on the currency of a single country.

The ECU was conceived on 13 March 1979 as an internal accounting unit. It had the ISO 4217 currency code XEU.