The Macanese pataca
Currency · MOP · 1 country
Two commercial banks, Banco Nacional Ultramarino and the Bank of China, issue the pataca's banknotes for Macau, and they pay for the right in Hong Kong dollars. The Monetary Authority of Macau runs the pataca as a currency board, backed in full by foreign assets, at a rate held at 1.03 patacas to the Hong Kong dollar since 1983.
No sign of its own
The pataca has no sign of its own. Amounts are written MOP$, or with a plain dollar sign, and in Chinese with 元; the Chinese name is 澳門元. Pataca was the Portuguese name for the Mexican silver dollar, the pataca mexicana, which circulated in Macau before the currency existed.
- ISO code
- MOP
- ISO number
- 446
- Subunit
- avo, 1/100
An amount, written out
MOP 1,234.50
- MOP 1,234.50English
- 1234,50 MOP$PortugueseMacau
In English the code comes before the amount. Where the Macanese pataca is used, it comes after the amount in Macau.
Where the Macanese pataca is the official currency
Macau is the pataca's one user, and Hong Kong dollars circulate widely beside it. At the end of 1998 patacas made up 29.9% of the money supply.
About the Macanese pataca
Why two commercial banks put out Macau's notes
In 1901 Banco Nacional Ultramarino was granted the exclusive right to issue banknotes in patacas. On 27 January 1906 notes of 1, 5, 50 and 100 patacas went out, with all foreign coin outlawed. The public, used to trading in silver, distrusted them, and the paper pataca circulated at a discount to the silver dollar.
The government moved the right to issue to a new Issuing Institute of Macau in 1980, keeping BNU as its agent. In 1989 the Monetary Authority of Macau replaced the Institute and handed note issue back to BNU under a currency board arrangement. The Bank of China's Macau branch became the second issuer in 1995, after BNU's agreement ran out on 15 October, and each bank takes half of the issue. Their notes carry Portuguese and Chinese and match Hong Kong notes of the same value in size. On 20 December 1999, the day Macau passed to China, both banks reissued their notes of every value except 10 patacas with that date. The Monetary Authority issues the coins itself.
How the pataca swapped the escudo for Hong Kong
The pataca began in 1894 as a unit of account for Portuguese Macau and Portuguese Timor, worth one Mexican peso. It was pegged to the Portuguese escudo in 1935, but in practice it followed the Hong Kong dollar, and it devalued alongside it in 1949 and again in 1967. On 7 April 1977 the Macau government tied it officially to the Hong Kong dollar at 1.075 patacas, with a margin of 1% either way. That ended seventy-one years of official links to the escudo.
Two attempts at parity failed. On 31 December 1978 the government announced one pataca to one Hong Kong dollar; the public switched en masse to Hong Kong dollars, banks halted exchange, and on the first trading day of 1979 the rate went back to 1.038. The middle rate reached 1.03 on 6 June 1983. When Hong Kong's currency crisis hit that September, the government tried parity again on 26 September and returned to 1.03 the next trading day.
What stands behind every note
The two banks pay the Monetary Authority in Hong Kong dollars, at the fixed rate, for non-interest-bearing certificates of indebtedness, and those certificates are the legal backing for the notes they issue. The issue is backed in full by foreign assets. The Monetary Authority must issue and redeem patacas against Hong Kong dollars at 1.03, on demand and without limit.
Why Hong Kong dollars outnumber patacas
Patacas made up 29.9% of Macau's money supply at the end of 1998. One estimate from that year put Hong Kong dollar notes in Macau at 1.4 times the value of pataca notes. Article 108 of the Basic Law guarantees that the pataca keeps circulating, yet at a conference the Monetary Authority held on 14 and 15 May 1999, some scholars questioned why Macau needed a separate currency at all, and one proposal was to make the Hong Kong dollar legal tender in its place.
Common questions
Questions about the Macanese pataca
Is the Hong Kong dollar accepted in Macau?
Yes, widely. The pataca is the legal currency, but Hong Kong dollars have long made up much of the money in use; patacas were 29.9% of the money supply at the end of 1998. The Monetary Authority of Macau stands ready to exchange the two at 1.03 patacas to the Hong Kong dollar.
Who prints Macau banknotes?
Banco Nacional Ultramarino and the Bank of China's Macau branch issue them, each for half of the circulation, as agents of the government under a currency board arrangement. BNU has issued pataca notes since 1906 and the Bank of China since 1995. Both pay the Monetary Authority in Hong Kong dollars for certificates that back what they issue. Hong Kong Note Printing prints them. The Monetary Authority itself issues only the coins.
How many avos are in a pataca?
A pataca is 100 avos. In Cantonese an avo is called sin (仙) and ten avos a ho (毫), a unit with no Portuguese counterpart. Coins of 10, 20 and 50 avos circulate beside coins of 1, 2, 5 and 10 patacas; the 20 avos and 5 patacas became twelve-sided in the early 1990s, and a bimetallic 10 patacas followed in 1997.
Why is Macau's currency called the pataca?
The Portuguese called the Mexican silver dollar the pataca mexicana. By the end of the nineteenth century several silver dollars circulated in Macau under that name, from Spanish dollars to the trade dollars of Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements. When the pataca became a unit of account in 1894, it took the old name and the value of one Mexican peso.