It is an official currency and legal tender of New Zealand, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency and the Pitcairn Islands. It is abbreviated with code NZD and symbol NZ$, this sign is used to distinguish it from other dominated dollar currencies. It context of trading currency, the New Zealand dollar is informally called “kiwi dollar” or “kiwi”, since New Zealand association with kiwi. In 1967, New Zealand dollar was introduced as official currency. It is subdivided into 100 cents. The New Zealand dollar is world 10th most traded currency. It represents nearly 2% of global foreign exchange market.
Prior to dollar, pound was an official currency of New Zealand, pound was divided into 20 shillings, and one shilling was divided into 12 pence. A plan to introduce decimal currency was given in 1930, but come to fruition in 1957. The Government of New Zealand set up a committee to examine decimal currency. In 1963, the New Zealand Government decided to decimalize New Zealand currency. In 1964, the Decimal Currency Act was passed, words such as “zeal”, “fern”, and “kiwi” were proposed to avoid confusion with the word dollar because at that time many people associate it with dollar of United State of America, but at the end of the day, the word dollar was chosen.
On 10th July 1967, the dollar was chosen to introduce as New Zealand currency to replace pound at rate of 2 dollar to 1 pound. Around 165 million new coins and 27 million new banknotes of New Zealand dollar were printed for the changeover. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is legal and authorized body to take decision regarding the supply of currency in the economy. The banknotes of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 and coins of 10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2 are currently circulation in New Zealand economy.