ISO 4217 or banking. At the 17th session (February 1978), the related UN/ECE Group of Experts agreed that the three-letter alphabetic codes for International Standard ISO 4217, "Codes for the representation of currencies and funds", would be suitable for use in international trade. Over time, new currencies are created and old currencies are discontinued. Frequently, these changes are due to the formation of new governments, treaties between countries standardizing on a shared currency, or revaluation of an existing currency due to excessive inflation. As a result, the list of codes must be updated from time to time. The ISO 4217 maintenance agency
International Classification for Standards number to the notation of the "sub-group" being subdivided. However, instead of a period, new notations use a hyphen as a separator. For example: International Classification for Standards International Classification for Standards (ICS) is an international classification system for technical standards. It is designed to cover every economic sector and virtually every activity of the humankind where technical standards may be used. Developed and maintained by the International Organization for Standardization, the ICS is intended to be a continuous work in progress and is updated when necessary. The latest edition of the ICS can be downloaded free of charge from