Chile's Basic Monetary Unit

In 1925, the "peso" became the monetary unit in Chile, with a content of 0.183057 grams of pure gold. The peso was divided into 100 cents. Likewise, ten pesos made up a "condor". Inflation left these fractional coins in disuse, until 1955, when a legal ruling established that obligations must be paid in whole pesos.

With the approval of Law No. 13,305, 1959, which replaced the peso with the escudo as the monetary unit, starting on 1 January 1960 (1 escudo = 1000 pesos), the basic law of 30 March 1960, article 51, ruled that bank notes should express their value in escudos, one-hundredths and half-one-hundredths, as corresponded, and bear the national coat of arms. In 1973, a new law, decree law 231, 31 December 1973, eliminated fractions of the escudo from accounting and documents issued as national currency. In 1975, the peso was reestablished as the monetary unit. Then, under decree law No. 1,123, published in the official gazette on 4 August 1975, as of 29 September of the same year, the monetary unit again became the peso, and at that time the rate of exchange was one thousand escudos.

Today, the Bank has the exclusive right to issue bank notes and coins, and may hire, in Chile or abroad, the printing of bank notes and the minting of coins. The characteristics of notes and their security measures are established by resolution of the Board of the Central Bank of Chile, and published in the official gazette.

The Central Bank is required to withdraw from circulation any notes in poor condition. Bank notes that have been mutilated, but clearly maintain more than half of their original text, can be exchanged at the Bank for their nominal value, while those preserving a smaller portion can be exchanged for their nominal value when, in the exclusive judgment of the Bank, it can be proved that the missing part has been completely destroyed.