Money vs Currency

Article byHarsh Katara

Reviewed byDheeraj Vaidya, CFA, FRM

Difference Between Money vs Currency

Currency vs Money is the two words that are used in our everyday life and are often confused as being a similar thing. The terms Money and Currency at glance would appear to be synonyms but they are not. Further, they are sometimes used interchangeably in several scenarios. There are several different theories that suggest how currency and money are separate from one other. However, several theories also state that there is a kind of thing is as bad money and good money. Good money can be considered to be gold, silver, etc. while on another hand bad money can be considered to be the currency. This is often confusing, now let’s try to get back to the basics.

The coins and bills that one may carry with oneself aren’t technically money but are currency. Most likely, they’re a kind of fiat currency or currency that has no intrinsic value. In the past, rare metals like silver and gold were used to be considered as money, but today’s money has become far more intangible and is defined by the functions that it can fulfill.

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Let’s now define money which has to be the medium of exchange, a store of value, a unit of account, and a payment standard.

In this article, we discuss the key differences between Money vs Currency.

Money vs Currency Infographics

Here we provide you with the top 6 difference between Money vs Currency

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Money vs Currency – Key Differences

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The key differences between Money vs Currency are as follows –

The major difference between Money vs Currency is that money is entirely numerical i.e. it’s only intangible which one cannot touch or smell whereas currency can be touch and smell and its tangible.
Check, online mode, etc. are all the types of money as stated earlier and all that is in hard currency whether being coins or currency notes can be considered a type of currency although those also represent numbers.
One needs to print currency in order to have them in plenty and its but obvious its work of the government whereas there is no requirement to print money as its intangible and only can be seen as numbers for example when you shop online and when you purchase any product you would be required to enter your bank details and all you would see is transfer of numbers from your bank account to merchant’s account.
Money is comparatively easier to be traded for a commodity or any service whereas currency although it is also easy to exchange it does carry small inconvenience of carrying the same along with oneself and when it is exhausted you would need to go to a bank and withdraw the same.
Currency can be termed as that money which brings the latter to life.
Currency must be in circulation for it to be traded and grow whereas money is intangible and can be easily circulated anywhere in the world.
Currency has its own limitation that is when one travels or changes the country the physical currency needs to be exchanged for that country’s currency as none of the countries have same currencies they all print their own currency whereas money gets easily converted into another currency by using the facility of exchange rate which is again a number.
A fiat currency can be exchanged for services and goods but in the end, it has no intrinsic value whereas soft money has intrinsic value.
In earlier days government use to print currency by backing the same with gold and silver and for money, no such thing would be required.

Money vs Currency Head to Head Difference

Let’s now look at the head to head difference between Money vs Currency

Basis – Money vs Currency	Money	Currency
Basic Definition	Money which cannot be touched, neither it can be smelled; however, money can be seen in terms of the numbers.	Currency is the promissory note or coin which is presented in the form of money.
Concept Type	Money is an intangible concept	Currency is a tangible concept
Basis Form	Money takes forms of numbers	Currency takes the form of hard plastic or coins or says the currency notes.
Support	Money is backed by many different things for example if one possesses money in a bank account then check (kind of money) would be backed by the same.	Whereas Fiat money which is currency will be backed by the government of that country.
Examples	Online mode, check savings bank account, etc.	Coins, Hard currency notes, etc.
Transfer Mode	Money can be transferred through online mode	Currency must be transferred via physical i.e. hand to hand transfer.

Conclusion

Coming to conclusion now, as stated earlier money is the broader term than currency and mostly embraces numbers whereas currency is a narrower term and includes only hard currencies i.e. notes, coins, etc. Fiat money is the physical money (coins and paper money), while representative money which is something that represents intent to pay that money like a check.
Most of the modern money is now fiat money because most of the governments have printed too much of the money to compete with inflation. The United States dollar has now shifted from the representative money to the fiat money when in 1971 President Nixon decided to abandon the gold standard.
Further, there has been a new concept nowadays running hot is bitcoin and cryptocurrency. These are again virtual money which can be easily transferred from one account to another and this does not require the government to print the money and these are backed with high security which uses cryptography and Cryptocurrencies do transfer funds directly between 2 parties in a transaction, without the requirement of a trusted 3rd party such as a credit card company or the bank; these secured transfers are facilitated through the use of private keys as well as public keys for security purposes.
In the modern cryptocurrency systems, a user’s account address or ‘‘wallet’’, has the public key, and then the private key will be used to sign in the transactions. Fund transfers can be done with minimal or lesser processing fees, allowing the users to avoid the steep fees that are charged by most of the financial institutions and banks for wire transfers.

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