Guatemalan quetzal 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, the quetzal was pegged to and domestically equal to the United States dollar and before the pegging to the US
Monetary system banks print all the money, this is not reflective of what actually happens. Today's global monetary system is essentially a fiat system because people can use paper bills or bank balances to buy goods. Money 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.