The Chilean peso is the official currency in Chile. The ISO code is CLP and this form of currency is officially abbreviated with the symbol chil $. A cil $ is divided into 100 centavos.
History of the Chilean Currency
When Chile gained its independence on April 5, 1818, the burgeoning state saw it as a necessity to introduce its own currency and thus in 1817 the Chilean peso was introduced as the first independent currency. The Chilean currency has been subject to constant change over the past few centuries. The peso, originally introduced by the Spanish conquerors, suffered from severe inflation in 1955 and the then smaller currency unit, the centavos, was then abolished for the time being.
In 1960, under the government of President Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez, a new reform replaced the peso for some time with the Chilean escudo, which was converted as follows: 1 escudo corresponded to 100 centésimos, of which 1 centésimo corresponded to 10 pesos.
The currency of the Chilean escudo lasted until 1975, when it was superseded with the reintroduction of the Chilean peso.
In the 1970’s, under the government of Salvador Allende, the country was subject to hyperinflation, which at that time reached up to 600%. After his death, the military dictatorship began and the peso was reintroduced in 1975. However, the exchange rate was not introduced under old values, but 1000 escudos now corresponded to one peso, which may seem rather ironic at first, as it was exactly the other way around before.
It is also interesting to mention that in the early 1980’s the Chilean peso was equivalent to an exchange rate of 39 pesos to one US dollar, but due to ongoing inflation it initially rose to 100 peso per dollar in 1984 and has now risen to around 500 peso per dollar.
In 2011 it was announced that, due to the strong appreciation of its own currency, Chile is ready to invest 12 billion dollars in order to halt the worrying development and to counteract the increase with this measure.
Exchange into Chilean people
Since many travelers ask themselves where the euro can be exchanged for the Chilean peso at the best rate, we would like to point out that in Chile itself, the exchange is usually the cheapest. If you have money left over after your holiday, you should also exchange it in Chile or buy something for it, because when you exchange money in Germany, there are usually dramatic losses of more than a third of the value and mostly only bills are exchanged.