🇵🇫CFP Franc (XPF)

The franc was created on 26 December 1945, the same day as the CFA franc, when France ratified the Bretton Woods agreements and devalued the metropolitan franc: the Pacific territories were given a separate unit that kept its pre-war purchasing power. The letters CFP have been read three ways over time, first as Colonies françaises du Pacifique, then Comptoirs français du Pacifique, and today Collectivités françaises du Pacifique. Issuance passed from the Banque de l'Indochine to the Institut d'émission d'outre-mer in 1967. The franc has no subunit in circulation, so prices and converted amounts are written as whole numbers.

The parity is fixed by French decree rather than set by a market. It was originally expressed against the metropolitan franc and carried over to the euro when France adopted the single currency in 1999, at the exact value the old parity implied, and it has not been altered since. Two things follow for anyone converting money. A transfer between mainland France and Nouméa or Papeete carries no exchange rate risk at all, because both sides are locked together. But converting CFP francs into dollars, yen or pounds is in substance a euro trade: the figure you see moves with the euro, not with anything happening in the Pacific.

The CFP franc is legal tender in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna; France's other overseas territories, including Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, use the euro.