The Kuwaiti dinar

Who issues the dinar and under which law

A Kuwaiti Currency Law of 1960 set up the Kuwaiti Currency Board, which issued the first notes from 1 April 1961. The Central Bank of Kuwait replaced the board in 1969. Law No. 32 of 1968, on currency, the Central Bank and the organisation of banking, governs the issue and circulation of notes and coins, and under it the right to issue Kuwaiti currency belongs to the State alone and is exercised by the Central Bank.

The notes come in six values: a quarter dinar, a half dinar, one, five, ten and twenty dinars.

What the dinar replaced

Before 1961 Kuwait used the Gulf rupee, which was equal to the Indian rupee. The new dinar was set equal to one pound sterling. The rupee was then fixed at one shilling and sixpence, so a dinar took 13⅓ rupees.

The anchor has moved since. From 18 March 1975 to 4 January 2003 the dinar was pegged to a weighted basket of currencies. From 5 January 2003 to 20 May 2007 it was tied to the US dollar at a central rate of US$1 to KD0.29963, with margins of 3.5% either side. On 16 June 2007 Kuwait returned to a basket, whose make-up is not disclosed.

How the Iraqi invasion changed the notes

Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and replaced the Kuwaiti dinar with the Iraqi dinar, and invading forces carried off large quantities of Kuwaiti banknotes. The third series, issued from 20 February 1980, was the one taken. After liberation the Central Bank put out a fourth series on 24 March 1991 to replace it as fast as possible, and ruled the third series invalid from 30 September 1991. Some of the stolen notes later surfaced on the international collectors' market.

The liberation shows up on the money twice more. Commemorative one dinar notes printed on polymer, dated 26 February 1993 and 26 February 2001, marked the second and tenth anniversaries, the first listing the nations that helped liberate Kuwait in English and Arabic.

What the notes and coins look like now

The sixth series entered circulation on 29 June 2014. Each value is a different width, from 110 millimetres for the quarter dinar to 160 for the twenty, and all carry tactile marks so that visually impaired users can identify them by touch. Every note pairs a building on the front with a named type of dhow, and the twenty dinar reverse shows a boom and a pearl diver.

The coins have not changed design since they were first minted in 1961. A boom, a sailing ship, fills the obverse with the year of minting in both the Islamic and the Common Era; the reverse gives the value in Arabic inside a central circle. The 5 and 10 fils are nickel-brass, the 20, 50 and 100 fils cupronickel with reeded edges. A 1 fils coin was minted from 1961 to 1988.