Finance:Thai baht

The baht (/bɑːt/; Thai: บาท, th; sign: ฿ or บ.; code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 satang (สตางค์, th; sign: st. or สต.). The currency was officially adopted during the Sukhothai period (1238-1438 CE) and continuously issued since. Initially issued in the podduang form, King Rama IV decided to switch to flat coins in 1860. The baht was then decimalised in 1897, before which the baht was divided into 8 fueang (เฟื้อง, th), each into 8 at (อัฐ, th), and each into 100 bia (เบี้ย, th). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. SWIFT ranked the Thai baht as the 10th-most-frequently used world payment currency as of December 2023.

The baht was defined as 15.16 grams (0.4874 troy oz) of silver or gold, which was exchanged at 16:1 ratio. This was the case until the decree of June 29, 1874 which switched the Thai baht to the silver standard, and again in 1908, converting the baht to the gold standard before being completely debased in 1962 with the halt in production of the silver baht coin.

The baht was pegged to the Spanish dollar from 1856 at a ฿5 to $3 ratio. It was then pegged to the British pound sterling (£) at a ฿8 to £1 in 1880 and subsequently several re-pegging to a new ratio. The baht was then pegged to the US dollar at a ฿20 to US$1 ratio along with several re-peg. The baht was forced to float in 1997 causing the Asian financial crisis.

The Thai baht, like the pound, originated from a traditional unit of mass. Its currency value was originally expressed as that of silver of corresponding weight (now defined as 15 grams), and was in use probably as early as the Sukhothai period in the form of bullet coins known in Thai as photduang. These were pieces of solid silver cast to various weights corresponding to a traditional system of units related by simple fractions and multiples, one of which is the baht. These are listed in the following table: Though the coins themselves have names like: solot, siao, sik, etc., the formal division of the Thai baht (tical) is 1 baht = 8 fueang = 64 at. This means that one baht is divided into eight fueang, and each one fueang is divided into eight at. Currently, the Thai baht do not employ the at as a subunit, but the at is the current subunit of the Lao kip.