Guatemalan quetzal on August 20, 2007. The Bank of Guatemala has also introduced a 5 quetzal polymer banknote on November 14, 2011. Guatemalan quetzal The quetzal (; code: GTQ) is the currency of Guatemala, named after the national bird of Guatemala, the resplendent quetzal. In ancient Mayan culture, the quetzal bird's tail feathers were used as currency. It is divided into 100 "centavos" or "lenes" in Guatemalan slang. The plural is "quetzales". The quetzal was introduced in 1925 during the term of President José María Orellana, whose image appears on the obverse of the one-quetzal bill. It replaced the peso. Until 1987,
Monetary system Monetary system A monetary system is the set of institutions by which a government provides money in a country's economy. Modern monetary systems usually consist of the national treasury, the mint, the central banks and commercial banks. A commodity money system is a monetary system in which a commodity such as gold or silver is made the unit of value and physically used as money. The money retains its value because of its physical properties. In some cases, a government may stamp a metal coin with a face, value or mark that indicates its weight or asserts its purity, but