Glossary
Market terms, explained
Every term we use on DinarView, in plain language.
ATM
A cash machine. Withdrawing dinars from a foreign card converts at the card scheme’s rate plus the bank’s fee, which is a different number from the street rate on this site.
Allowance
A payment added to base salary for a role, a risk or a location. In Iraqi public pay it often exceeds the base, which is why quoting a base salary understates what is actually earned.
Anti-money laundering
The body of rules obliging financial firms to detect and report suspicious movements of money. Iraq’s framework sits with the central bank, and compliance with it is what keeps correspondent banking relationships open.
Appreciation
A currency gaining value against another. When the dinar appreciates against the dollar, the rate on this page falls, because it takes fewer dinar to buy one dollar.
Arbitrage
Profiting from the same asset trading at different prices in two places. Persistent gaps between Iraqi cities usually reflect transport and risk costs rather than free profit.
AsiaHawala
A licensed mobile money service operating on the AsiaCell network. Like other wallets it settles in dinars, and its cash-out points are a separate queue from the exchange offices.
Ask price
What an exchange office will sell a dollar for — the "sell" column on a board, and what you pay when buying dollars. It is always a little above the bid. DinarView’s sell figure is the median of the office boards it reads; the headline rate is the mid between the two.
Assay
The test that establishes how pure a metal actually is. Shops in Baghdad’s gold market do a quick version at the counter; a formal assay is what settles a dispute.
Asset recovery
The legal work of finding stolen public money abroad and bringing it home. It is slow, depends on cooperation from the country holding the funds, and rarely recovers the full amount.
Auction
The Central Bank of Iraq’s sale of dollars to licensed banks. It sets the official rate, not the street rate, and it is the mechanism behind the 1,310 figure shown beside the market rate on this site.
Average
A single figure standing in for many. Every market rate on DinarView is a collected average across sources, not any one office’s quote.
BIC
The code that names the receiving bank in a SWIFT transfer, sometimes called a SWIFT code. It identifies the institution; the IBAN identifies the account inside it.
Balance of payments
The full record of money entering and leaving a country. It is the frame the trade balance sits inside, and persistent pressure in it is what eventually forces a peg to move.
Bank guarantee
A bank’s written promise to pay if its customer does not. Contractors need them to bid on public work, and the fee for one is a real cost of doing business here.
Bank run
Depositors withdrawing at once because they fear the bank will fail. The fear is self-fulfilling: no bank holds enough cash to pay everyone on the same day.
Bank transfer
Moving money between accounts rather than in cash. In Iraq it typically settles at a different rate from the cash market, and often more slowly.
Banking licence
The permission a firm needs to take deposits and offer banking services. The central bank grants and withdraws it, and a withdrawn licence is one of the sharper shocks a local market can receive.
Banknote
A physical note of currency. Condition matters in Iraq: worn or marked dollar notes are often bought at less than the quoted rate.
Base currency
The currency a rate is measured in units of. "USD/IQD 1,538" means one US dollar, the base, costs 1,538 dinars. Switch this site to dollar quoting and the base changes for every pair except the dinar itself.
Base year
The period an index is measured against. Change the base year and every number in the series changes with it, even though nothing in the real world has moved.
Basis point
One hundredth of one percent. Used to describe small rate differences precisely, because saying “a tenth of a percent” invites confusion.
Basket of goods
The fixed list of items a price index tracks. If the basket does not match what a household actually buys, the published inflation rate will not match its experience.
Bear market
A sustained fall in prices, conventionally a fifth or more from a peak. For a pegged currency the concept applies to the parallel rate, not the official one.
Bid price
What an exchange office will buy a dollar for — the "buy" column on a board, and what you receive when selling dollars. Always a little below the ask. DinarView’s buy figure is the median of the office boards it reads, nationally and per city.
Binance
The largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. It is named here because Iraqi users reach it through foreign accounts; it is not licensed in Iraq and the central bank does not recognise crypto as currency.
Bitcoin
The first and largest cryptocurrency. It is quoted here against the dinar for reference only; it is not legal tender in Iraq and the central bank has warned against dealing in it.
Black market rate
A term DinarView avoids. Exchange offices in Iraq are licensed and trade openly, so what they quote is a parallel or open-market rate, not a black-market one. We call it the market rate.
Blockchain
The shared ledger a cryptocurrency records its transactions on. It explains why a crypto transfer settles without a correspondent bank, and why it cannot be reversed once sent.
Bond
A loan to a government or company, tradable and repaid on a stated date with interest along the way. It is the conventional instrument sukuk was designed to replace.
Bribery
Paying an official to act, or not act, outside the rules. It raises the real cost of every licence and clearance, and that cost is passed into prices like any other tax.
Bulk rate
The better rate offered on a large exchange. It is why a company changing thousands of dollars sees a different number from someone changing a hundred, on the same day at the same counter.
Bull market
A stretch in which prices mostly rise and buyers set the tone. The label is only ever applied with hindsight, which is worth remembering when someone applies it to the present.
Bullion
Gold or silver held as bars or coins for value rather than as jewellery. Priced close to the metal content, with a smaller making charge than jewellery.
Bybit
A crypto exchange known mainly for leveraged derivatives. It is the category of platform where retail users most often lose their entire deposit.
Capital adequacy
How much of a bank’s own money stands behind its lending. Thin capital means a bank cannot absorb losses, which is why supervisors set a floor and test it.
Capital controls
Rules limiting how much currency can move in or out of a country. They are one reason a parallel rate can persist alongside an official one.
Capital flight
Money leaving a country quickly because holders no longer trust it will keep its value. It shows up first as a jump in dollar demand and only later in the official statistics.
Card fee
The charge a card issuer adds on a foreign-currency transaction, usually a percentage. It is separate from the exchange rate and is the main reason a card total does not match the rate you looked up.
Card terminal
The machine a shop uses to take card payments. Where a terminal bills in dollars and the card is a dinar card, the conversion happens at the bank’s rate, not the shop’s.
Carry trade
Borrowing a low-interest currency to hold a higher-interest one and pocketing the difference. It works until the exchange rate moves against you, which it tends to do all at once.
Cash pickup
Collecting a transfer as banknotes at an agent rather than into an account. It reaches people without bank accounts, which in Iraq is most of them, and costs more for that reason.
Cash settlement
Paying and receiving in physical notes rather than through a bank. Most exchange in Iraq happens this way, which is why the market rate is a cash rate.
Central Bank of Iraq
Iraq’s monetary authority. It issues the dinar, holds the foreign reserves, and runs the dollar auction that sets the official rate quoted on this site.
Central bank independence
How far a central bank can set policy without the finance ministry overriding it. Where independence is thin, the printing press tends to answer to the deficit.
Central bank rate
The official rate the Central Bank of Iraq sets, currently 1,310 dinars to the dollar. Used for bank transfers, customs and official paperwork. On this site it is the dashed line on the dollar chart and the figure the spread is measured against.
Clearing
The process of matching and netting payments between banks before money actually moves. It is why a transfer sent today may settle tomorrow.
Coinbase
A United States crypto exchange, listed on a stock market and regulated there. Its rates are quoted in dollars and its account opening requires documents most Iraqi users cannot supply from inside Iraq.
Collateral
An asset pledged so a lender can recover if the borrower does not pay. Gold and property are the usual ones in Iraq, because both are held outside the banking system.
Collection time
The moment a rate was actually read, printed next to every figure on this site in Baghdad time. It is not the time you loaded the page. Outside trading hours the last collected rate stays on screen with its own timestamp rather than being refreshed to look current.
Commission
A stated charge for handling an exchange or transfer, separate from the rate. A low commission on a poor rate is usually more expensive than the reverse.
Compliance
The checks banks run to satisfy anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules. Tighter compliance reduces how easily dollars reach the market, even when supply is unchanged.
Confidence interval
The range a true value is likely to sit in, given that the figure came from a sample. Any honest average has one, even when it is not printed beside the number.
Consumer price index
A basket of everyday goods tracked over time to measure inflation. It is a different measurement from the exchange rate, and the two can move apart.
Converter
The tool on this site that applies the current rate to an amount you enter. It uses the market rate by default because that is the rate most people meet.
Convertibility
How freely a currency can be exchanged for others. Limited convertibility is what makes access to dollars, rather than the headline rate, the real constraint.
Core banking system
The software of record holding every account and transaction. Iraqi banks modernising it is what has made same-day transfers and card payments possible in the last decade.
Core inflation
Price rises with food and energy stripped out, to show the underlying trend. Central banks watch it; households do not eat it.
Correction
A partial fall after a sharp rise, without the trend reversing. Distinguishing one from the start of a real decline is only possible afterwards.
Correspondent bank
A foreign bank that processes international payments on behalf of a local one. When correspondents become cautious, transfers slow and the market rate can move on process alone.
Corruption
The use of public office for private gain. In a currency context it shows up as privileged access to the official rate, which converts a policy price into a private profit at the market’s expense.
Corruption Perceptions Index
Transparency International’s annual ranking of how corrupt a country’s public sector is believed to be. It measures perception among experts and business people, not counted cases, and should be read as a signal rather than a measurement.
Cost of living
What it costs a household to keep its usual standard. It rises with import prices, so a weaker dinar reaches the kitchen table before it reaches the statistics.
Counterfeit
A fake note. Checking notes is standard practice at exchange offices and is one of the services the spread pays for.
Counterparty risk
The risk that the person on the other side of a trade does not deliver. It is usually a larger real cost than a slightly worse rate.
Coupon
The interest a bond pays, expressed as a percentage of its face value. A bond bought below face value yields more than its coupon, which is why price and yield move in opposite directions.
Cross rate
A rate between two currencies calculated through a third, usually the dollar. Most non-dollar rates on this site are cross rates, which is why they carry the spread of both legs.
Crypto exchange
A platform matching buyers and sellers of digital assets. Iraqi users mostly reach them through foreign accounts, which puts the transfer under the same compliance checks as any other cross-border payment.
Crypto wallet
Software or hardware holding the keys that control crypto funds. Losing the keys loses the money outright: there is no branch to visit and no record to appeal to.
Currency code
The three-letter ISO label for a currency — IQD for the Iraqi dinar, USD for the US dollar. Rate tables use it because currency names are ambiguous across languages in a way the code never is.
Currency crisis
A rapid loss of confidence in a currency, usually ending in a devaluation or capital controls. Reserves buy time; they do not by themselves resolve the cause.
Currency option
A contract giving the right, but not the duty, to exchange at a set rate later. Importers use them as insurance; they are not something an exchange office sells.
Currency pair
Two currencies quoted against each other, such as USD/IQD. The first is what you are pricing; the second is what you are pricing it in.
Currency peg
An official commitment to hold a currency at a fixed value against another. The dinar is pegged to the US dollar, which is why the central bank line on our charts is flat for long stretches and then steps, rather than drifting day to day.
Currency reform of 2003
The exchange that replaced both the Swiss and the Saddam dinar with one national note series. It is the origin of today’s dinar, and the reason any rate quoted from before it is not comparable with the rate on this site.
Current account
The balance of a country’s trade, income and transfers with the rest of the world. A surplus brings dollars in; a deficit means they have to be found somewhere, usually from reserves.
Customs duty
The tax charged on goods entering Iraq. It is paid in dinars on a value usually set in dollars, so a change in the rate moves the landed cost of imports even when the foreign price has not moved at all.
Daily limit
The most an office or bank will exchange for one person in a day. When limits tighten, demand spills into the open market and the gap between the rates usually widens.
Data source
Where a published number came from. DinarView’s methodology page sets out which sources feed each figure, because a rate is only as good as its provenance.
De-risking
A foreign bank closing whole categories of correspondent relationships rather than assessing each one. It has cut Iraqi banks off from dollar clearing at times, pushing payments into slower and costlier channels.
Deflation
A general fall in prices. Rarer than inflation and not automatically good, because falling prices can signal falling demand.
Demand deposit
A balance you can withdraw at any time without notice. It pays little or nothing, and it is what a current account holds.
Denomination
The face value printed on a note. The dinar circulates mainly in large denominations, so ordinary purchases involve numbers in the thousands.
Deposit
Money placed with a bank, repayable on demand or at a set date. In Iraq a large share of household savings never becomes a deposit at all and stays as cash at home.
Deposit insurance
A scheme guaranteeing depositors up to a limit if a bank fails. Where it is weak or absent, savers hold cash and dollars instead of deposits, which is much of the story of Iraqi household saving.
Depreciation
A currency losing value against another. A depreciating dinar shows up here as a rising number of dinar per dollar.
Devaluation
A deliberate cut to a currency’s official value by the authority that sets it. It is a decision, not a market movement — which is why a devaluation shows up as a step in the central bank line on our charts, while the market line moves continuously.
Dinar (IQD)
Iraq’s currency. IQD is its three-letter code. Every rate on this site is expressed in dinars per one unit of the other currency, unless you switch the site to dollars.
Dinar promoter
Someone predicting an imminent jump in the dinar’s value, usually while selling notes or subscriptions. A forecast that requires you to buy from the forecaster deserves particular scepticism.
Discount
Trading below a reference value. Worn foreign notes are commonly bought at a discount to the quoted rate.
Disinflation
Prices still rising, but more slowly than before. It is not the same as deflation, and confusing the two is a common way to misread a central bank statement.
Diversification
Spreading holdings so no single failure is fatal. Keeping savings in dinars, dollars and gold at once is diversification as practised by most Iraqi households, whether or not they call it that.
Dividend
The share of profit a company pays out to its owners. Iraqi bank shares are held largely for it, which makes them sensitive to anything that squeezes bank margins.
Dollarisation
A population using a foreign currency alongside or instead of its own. Partial dollarisation is why Iraqi prices are often quoted in both currencies.
Due diligence
The checking a firm is expected to do before entering a relationship or a deal. Enhanced due diligence applies to higher-risk customers and takes longer, which is felt as delay at the counter.
Embezzlement
Taking money you were trusted to hold. It differs from theft in that the access was legitimate, which is what makes it hard to detect without an audit trail.
Equity
An ownership share in a business, as against a loan to it. Equity carries the loss first and the upside without limit, which is the trade against a bond’s fixed return.
Euro
The currency of the eurozone. Quoted here against the dinar as a cross rate through the dollar, like most non-dollar pairs.
Exchange booth
A small street counter, as opposed to a licensed office with a shopfront. Rates can be keener but there is no receipt and no recourse, which is the trade you are making.
Exchange fee
A flat charge some offices add on top of their rate. It is separate from the spread, and a low advertised rate with a fee attached can cost more than a plainer quote.
Exchange office licence
The authorisation an exchange office holds from the Central Bank of Iraq. It is why DinarView calls the parallel rate a market rate rather than a black-market one.
Exchange rate
The price of one currency in terms of another. Iraq has two that matter at once: the rate the central bank sets and the rate the open market trades at. This site publishes both, side by side, and never blends them.
Exchange rate regime
The rule a country follows in setting its currency’s value — fixed, floating, or something between. Iraq runs a peg to the dollar, which is why the official rate changes rarely and in steps.
Exchange rate risk
The chance that a rate moves against you between agreeing a deal and settling it. It is why importers care about the gap between order and payment.
Execution
The moment a trade actually happens, as opposed to the moment it was agreed. The rate that matters is the one at execution, which on a busy day is not the one you were quoted.
FATF
The international body that sets standards against laundering and terrorist financing and assesses countries against them. Its assessments matter to Iraq because banks abroad price the result into whether they will deal with Iraqi banks at all.
FastPay
An Iraqi digital wallet used for bills, transfers and merchant payments. It is a dinar rail: useful for avoiding cash, irrelevant to the question of what a dollar costs.
Fiat currency
Money that has value because a state issues it and people accept it, not because it is backed by metal. The dinar and the dollar are both fiat currencies.
Financial inclusion
How much of a population can reach basic banking at reasonable cost. Iraq’s is low, which is why so much value moves as cash, gold and hawala rather than through accounts.
Financial intelligence unit
The state office that receives suspicious transaction reports, analyses them and passes cases to prosecutors. It sits between the banking system and law enforcement and publishes little.
Fineness
How much of a piece is pure metal, written in parts per thousand — 995 means 995 grams of gold in every kilogram. It is the same idea as karat expressed a different way.
Fiscal deficit
Government spending exceeding its income over a period. Financing one by printing money is the classic route to inflation, and Iraq’s history with that is recent enough to be remembered.
Foreign reserves
The foreign currency and gold a central bank holds. Large reserves give a central bank room to defend a rate; shrinking reserves usually precede a widening gap.
Forex scam
A pitch promising guaranteed returns from currency trading, usually with a broker you cannot verify and withdrawals that stop working. Guaranteed returns and currency trading do not go together.
Forward rate
An agreed rate for a currency exchange happening on a future date. DinarView does not publish forward rates; they are a banking product, not a street price.
Fraud
Obtaining money by deception. In currency markets it most often takes the form of a rate promised and not delivered, or a transfer that never arrives.
Free float
An exchange rate set entirely by supply and demand, with no central bank target. The Iraqi dinar is not freely floating.
Fundamental analysis
Judging value from the underlying conditions — oil receipts, reserves, the budget, the auction. On the dinar this is the analysis that actually explains the moves.
Gharar
An Arabic word for excessive uncertainty in a contract — an unknown price, an unclear quantity, a thing that may never be delivered. In Islamic commercial law a sale carrying gharar is void, because one side is effectively gambling on what the other knows. It is the reason a scholar will question a forward or an option but not a plain spot exchange, where both the rate and the money change hands at once.
Ghost employee
A name on a payroll with no person behind it, or a person who never attends. Iraq has removed tens of thousands of such entries in successive audits; each one is a salary leaving the budget every month for nothing.
Gold
A metal held as a store of value. DinarView quotes it in both the international troy ounce and the local mithqal, because Iraqi shops price in the latter.
Gold coin
A minted gold piece traded by weight with a small premium for its form. In Iraq the Ottoman and British sovereign types are the familiar ones and change hands at recognised weights.
Gold-silver ratio
How many grams of silver one gram of gold buys. Traders watch it as a rough gauge of whether one metal has run ahead of the other.
Gram
The metric unit most gold shops weigh in. One mithqal is a fixed number of grams, so the two units convert exactly.
Grey list
FATF’s list of countries under increased monitoring while they fix identified weaknesses. Being on it raises the cost and slowness of every cross-border payment, whether or not any individual transaction is suspect.
Gross domestic product
The total value of what a country produces in a year. Iraq’s is dominated by oil, which is why the dinar tracks the oil price more closely than most currencies track their own economies.
Halal investment
Investment screened against Islamic rules: no interest income, no forbidden trades, and no contract resting on gharar or maysir. Screening is a matter of scholarly opinion, so lists differ between institutions.
Hallmark
The stamp on a gold piece recording its fineness and often its maker. An unstamped piece is not worthless, but it will be bought at a discount until it has been assayed.
Hawala
A transfer settled through a network of brokers rather than through banks. Widely used across Iraq and the region. Hawala rates can differ from the exchange-office rate shown here, and DinarView does not track them.
Hawaladar
The person who runs a hawala house. Trust and reputation are the whole security of the arrangement; there is no contract to enforce and no regulator to appeal to.
Headline inflation
The full price rise including food and fuel. It is what households feel, and it is the noisier of the two measures because those two items move most.
Hedging
Taking a position that offsets a risk you already carry. Holding some savings in dollars against dinar exposure is the everyday version.
Hyperinflation
Inflation so rapid that money loses value faster than it can be spent. Iraq is not in this condition; the term is often used loosely and wrongly.
IBAN
The standard account number used for international transfers. An Iraqi IBAN starts with IQ; getting one character wrong usually means the transfer is returned days later, after the rate has moved.
ID requirement
The rule obliging an office to record who is exchanging above a threshold. It exists for anti-money-laundering compliance and is a normal part of a licensed transaction, not a sign of trouble.
IMF
The International Monetary Fund, which lends to countries in balance-of-payments trouble and publishes assessments of their currency arrangements. Its reports are a standard outside reference on the dinar’s peg.
Ijara
A lease in which the bank owns the asset and rents it to the customer, sometimes ending in transfer of ownership. It is the Islamic route to financing a vehicle or premises.
Illicit financial flows
Money crossing borders in breach of law, whether from crime, tax evasion or trade misinvoicing. Estimating them is inexact by definition, so figures vary widely between sources.
Index number
A figure that expresses change against a chosen starting point set to one hundred. It makes different series comparable, and it is meaningless without knowing which year the hundred refers to.
Indexation
Linking wages, pensions or contracts automatically to a price index. It protects incomes from inflation and can also entrench it, which is why states adopt it reluctantly.
Inflation
A general rise in prices, which lowers what a unit of money buys. It is related to the exchange rate but is not the same thing: the dinar can hold steady against the dollar while the price of food at home still climbs. We publish rates, not price indices.
Informal economy
Work and trade outside registration, tax and official statistics. It is a large share of Iraqi activity, which is why headline figures and daily experience often disagree.
Ingot
A cast bar of metal, sold by weight and fineness rather than by workmanship. Because it carries no making charge it tracks the spot price more closely than jewellery does.
Interbank rate
The rate banks trade currency with each other at. It is wholesale and not available to individuals; the rate you are offered always sits outside it.
Interest rate
The price of borrowing money for a period. Gaps between countries’ rates drive currency flows, which is why a change in Washington is felt in Baghdad’s exchange offices within days.
Iranian toman
An informal Iranian unit equal to ten rial, used in everyday pricing. Widely met in border trade, and quoted here because the official rial figure does not describe what people actually pay.
Iraq Stock Exchange
The Baghdad exchange where Iraqi company shares are traded. It matters here because bank shares listed on it react to the same dollar pressures the dinar does, but it does not set the exchange rate.
Jewellery gold
Gold worked into wearable pieces, usually at a lower karat than bullion so it is hard enough to wear. Its price carries the making charge, so it is not a clean read on the metal.
Karat
The purity of gold, out of twenty-four. Iraqi shops commonly trade twenty-one karat, so a price quoted for pure gold is not the price of the item in the window.
Kickback
A share of a contract’s value returned secretly to whoever awarded it. It is why a project can be fully paid for and still be half built.
Know your customer
The duty on a bank or exchange office to establish who it is dealing with before it acts. It is why a large exchange asks for identification and a small one usually does not.
Kraken
A United States crypto exchange, among the older ones still operating. Named here for completeness; the same access and licensing limits apply as for the others.
Kurdcoin
The cryptocurrency exchange behind this site. Kurdcoin has bought and sold bitcoin and USDT for people and businesses in Iraq since 2017, against the dinar and the dollar, from Erbil — and it works with banks, ministries and companies on custody, payments and training. DinarView began as its own internal record of the street rate, and the same team still builds and pays for it: kurdcoin.krd.
Kurdistan Region
The federal region covering Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok and Halabja. Its exchange market runs on the same dinar but its own supply of cash, which is why city rates in the north routinely sit above Baghdad’s.
Legal tender
Money that must be accepted to settle a debt in a country. The dinar is Iraq’s legal tender even where dollars circulate widely in practice.
Lender of last resort
The central bank’s role in lending to a solvent bank that cannot borrow anywhere else. Its existence is what stops a liquidity problem at one bank becoming a run on all of them.
Letter of credit
A bank undertaking to pay an exporter once shipping documents are presented. In Iraq it is one of the main legitimate routes to dollars at the official rate.
Leverage
Trading with borrowed money so a small move produces a large gain or loss. It belongs to speculative platforms, not to changing money for a trip, and it is how most people lose money on currencies.
Limit order
An instruction to trade only at a stated rate or better. It is the formal-market version of telling a sarraf you will come back if the rate reaches a number you name.
Liquidity
How much cash is available to trade without moving the price. When dollars are plentiful the market rate sits close to the official one; when they are scarce the gap widens. Liquidity is usually the reason behind a move, not the move itself.
London fix
The twice-daily benchmark price for gold set in London. Baghdad shops price off it, then add the local premium and the making charge, so the two figures never match exactly.
Long position
Holding a currency because you expect it to gain. Anyone keeping savings in dollars inside Iraq is long the dollar, whether or not they would use the word.
Lot
A standard trade size on a formal market. It has no equivalent at an exchange office, where you hand over whatever you have — which is one reason street rates and trading-platform rates are not the same thing.
Making charge
The labour cost added to the metal value when you buy jewellery. It is why a gold necklace costs more than its weight, and it is not recovered on resale.
Managed float
An exchange rate that moves with the market but is steered by the central bank. Iraq operates closer to this than to a free float.
Margin
The amount a provider adds to, or takes off, the market rate. It is built into the price rather than shown separately, which is why comparing all-in figures matters.
Market depth
How much can be traded before the price moves against you. Local depth in Iraq is smaller than global depth, which matters more than the headline rate for larger amounts.
Market maker
A dealer who quotes both a buy and a sell price continuously and earns the spread between them. Every exchange office on a busy street is one, whether or not it uses the term.
Market order
An instruction to trade now at whatever the current rate is. Walking into an exchange office and changing money is a market order in everything but name.
Market rate
The price the dinar is actually changing hands at on Iraq’s open currency market. This is the headline figure on DinarView — the large number on the home page — and it is collected through the trading day, not derived from the official rate.
Maturity
The date a bond or deposit is repaid. Longer maturities pay more because the holder is exposed for longer to inflation and to the borrower failing.
Maysir
Gambling, in the sense that makes a contract impermissible: gain that depends purely on chance at another’s expense. It is the objection raised against leveraged currency speculation.
Median
The middle value in a set. Less affected by one unusual quote than an average, which is why it is sometimes the more honest summary of a scattered market.
Methodology
The published account of how a figure is produced. Ours sets out the sources, the collection time and the rounding, so a number can be checked rather than trusted.
Mid rate
The midpoint between a bid and an ask, used across finance so that a widening gap between buying and selling is not mistaken for a price move. DinarView publishes a single collected market average rather than a bid, an ask or a mid.
Minimum wage
The lowest lawful pay for work. Where much employment is informal it binds on paper more than in practice, and inflation erodes it between revisions.
Mining
The computing work that secures a blockchain and issues new coins. It matters in Iraq mainly as a load on the electricity supply, which is why it has been restricted at times.
Mithqal
A traditional weight used for gold in Iraq, taken here as 5 grams. Our gold and silver pages show both the mithqal and the troy ounce, because a jeweller in Baghdad quotes one and the world market quotes the other.
Mobile wallet
An account held on a phone rather than at a bank branch. In Iraq these are dinar accounts under central bank licence; none of them quote you a dollar rate.
Monetary policy
The decisions a central bank takes about money supply and interest rates. In Iraq the most visible instrument is the dollar auction.
Money laundering
Moving criminal proceeds through legitimate-looking transactions until the origin cannot be traced. Exchange houses are an obvious channel, which is why licensed ones are required to record who is exchanging what.
Money supply
The total money circulating in an economy. Rapid growth without matching output is one of the classic drivers of inflation.
Moving average
An average recalculated over a rolling window, used to smooth out daily noise. It shows a trend, and it always lags the current price.
Mudaraba
An arrangement where one side provides the money and the other the work, sharing profit on agreed terms while the financier bears the cash loss. Most Islamic savings accounts in Iraq are structured this way.
Murabaha
A financing sale where the bank buys the goods and resells them to the customer at a disclosed mark-up, payable over time. It is the most common Islamic alternative to a consumer loan in Iraq.
Musharaka
A partnership where bank and client both put in capital and share profit and loss by agreement. Unlike a loan, the bank carries real risk, which is what makes the return permissible.
National bond
Government debt sold to the domestic public, sometimes in dollars. Iraq has used these to fund deficits without going to foreign markets, and take-up is a rough measure of trust in the state.
Nepotism
Appointing relatives rather than the qualified. It is a corruption of the labour market rather than the cash box, and its cost shows up as institutions that cannot do their job.
Netting
Cancelling opposite obligations so only the difference moves. It is how hawala networks settle between cities without shipping cash, and how banks settle at the end of a clearing day.
Non-deliverable forward
A forward contract settled in dollars rather than by handing over the local currency. It exists for currencies that are hard to move across borders, which is why it comes up in dinar discussions abroad.
Nostro and vostro
The paired names for one account seen from two sides: our account with you, your account with us. Cross-border payment is mostly the moving of balances between such accounts.
Note condition
How clean, unmarked and recent a banknote is. In Iraq it materially changes the rate offered for foreign cash, especially dollars.
OKX
A large international crypto exchange offering spot and derivative trading. Its derivative products are the leveraged kind that raise both the maysir objection and the plain risk of total loss.
Oil revenue
Iraq’s main source of foreign currency. Because dollars enter the economy largely through oil sales, oil prices and the dinar are closely linked.
Open market
Trading that happens outside official channels but in the open, through licensed offices. DinarView’s market rate comes from this market.
Open market operations
A central bank buying or selling securities to add or drain money from the banking system. It is the routine tool of monetary policy, distinct from the dollar auction.
Order book
The live list of what buyers and sellers are willing to pay and accept. Iraq’s street market has no published order book, which is why a collected average of real readings is the closest thing available.
Outlier
A reading far from the rest of the set. One office quoting well away from its neighbours is usually a data problem or a special case, and it is set aside rather than allowed to drag the average.
Over-invoicing
Declaring an import as costing more than it did, so the extra dollars bought at the official rate stay abroad. It is one of the main routes by which auction dollars leave without goods arriving.
Overdraft
Permission to draw a balance below zero up to a limit. It is credit charged by the day, and the cheapest way to use it is briefly.
Parallel market
The open currency market that runs alongside the official channel, at its own price. It is where most people in Iraq actually buy dollars, and it is the market this site collects from. "Parallel" says where it sits, not whether it is legal.
Parity
Two currencies or instruments being worth the same. A stablecoin at parity is worth exactly one dollar; in Iraq it usually is not.
Payout agent
The local shop or bank that hands the cash to the recipient. Its float and its own rate are why the same transfer pays out differently in two towns on the same day.
Payroll
The list of who a body pays and how much. Iraq’s public payroll is the single largest recurring claim on the budget, and auditing it is where ghost employees are found.
Peer-to-peer
Trading directly between two people rather than through a dealer. It is how most crypto is bought in Iraq, and it carries counterparty risk that an exchange office does not.
Percentile
The value below which a given share of readings falls. Quoting the tenth and ninetieth percentile of a day’s readings says more about what you will actually be charged than a single average does.
Pip
The smallest step a quoted rate normally moves. On the dinar, where rates are quoted in whole dinars per dollar, a pip is one dinar — small on its own, and worth noticing on a large exchange.
Politically exposed person
Someone holding, or close to, a prominent public position, whose accounts get extra scrutiny. The label is not an accusation; it is a risk category applied because public office creates opportunity.
Ponzi scheme
Paying early investors out of later investors’ money while claiming a real return. It must collapse, and the only question is who is holding it when it does.
Portfolio
Everything a person or institution holds, taken together. Judging a single holding on its own misses the point: what matters is how the whole set behaves when one part falls.
Prepaid card
A card loaded with a fixed balance, often in dollars for use abroad or online. The rate you were charged when it was loaded is the rate you keep, whatever the market does afterwards.
Private banks
Iraq’s commercial banks outside state ownership. Most dollar demand that reaches the auction is filed through them, and a bank barred from bidding pushes its customers toward the exchange offices instead.
Procurement fraud
Rigging how a public contract is awarded — steering the specification, splitting a tender to avoid scrutiny, or agreeing prices between bidders. The loss is the gap between what was paid and what the work was worth.
Producer price index
What producers receive at the factory gate, before retail. It usually turns before consumer prices do, so it is read as an early warning.
Purchasing power
What a unit of money actually buys. A rate can be stable while purchasing power falls, if local prices are rising.
Purchasing power parity
The rate at which two currencies would buy the same basket. It is a long-run reference, not a trading rate, and it usually sits far from the market number.
Qi Card
The payroll and pension card issued through Iraqi banks. Salaries land on it in dinars, and the day large batches are loaded is often a day the exchange offices see more customers.
Quantitative easing
A central bank buying assets on a large scale to push money into the economy. It is a policy of the large reserve-currency economies, and its effects reach Iraq through the dollar, not the dinar.
Quote currency
The second currency in a pair — the one the price is expressed in. In USD/IQD the quote currency is the dinar, so the number means dinar per dollar.
Rafidain Bank
Iraq’s oldest and largest state bank. Together with Rasheed it handles most public salaries and pensions, so its branch queues shape how much cash reaches the street market in any given week.
Rally
A quick rise after a fall. A rally inside a downtrend is common and is not by itself evidence that the fall is over.
Rasheed Bank
The second of Iraq’s two large state banks, founded to sit alongside Rafidain. Its role in the payroll system makes it part of the plumbing between the central bank’s auction and the cash a sarraf actually holds.
Rate board
The list of currencies and metals shown at the top of this site. It is ordered by what visitors actually open, not alphabetically.
Rate board
The board outside an exchange office showing its buy and sell prices. It is the raw material of this site: readings are collected from boards like it, city by city, through the day.
Rate gap
The distance between the official and market rates. It is one of the most watched indicators in Iraq, because it widens when dollars become harder to obtain.
Real versus nominal
A nominal figure is the number as printed; a real figure is that number adjusted for inflation. Wages that rise slower than prices are rising nominally and falling really.
Receipt
The slip recording what you exchanged, at what rate, and when. It is what a licensed office is meant to give you, and the only evidence you have if the count was wrong.
Redenomination
Restating a currency by removing zeros. Holdings and prices are restated together, so it changes the notation and not anyone’s wealth.
Regional spread
The difference in the market rate between Iraqi cities on the same day. Usually small, and usually explained by transport, demand and local liquidity rather than by anything unusual.
Remittance
Money sent home from abroad. The rate a remittance settles at is usually the provider’s own, not the market mid-rate — the difference is the real cost of the transfer.
Remittance corridor
A specific sending and receiving country pair, such as Turkey to Iraq. Costs differ sharply by corridor, so an average global fee says little about what you will actually pay.
Remittance margin
The gap between the rate a transfer service uses and the market rate. It is the hidden part of the price, and on a large transfer it dwarfs the visible fee.
Reserve requirement
The share of deposits a bank must keep rather than lend. Raising it drains money from circulation; it is one of the few levers a central bank has that does not involve selling dollars.
Retail rate
The rate an individual is actually offered over a counter. It is the interbank or market rate plus whatever the provider needs to earn.
Revaluation
An official increase in a pegged currency’s value. Frequently promised for the dinar by people selling notes; a genuine revaluation would follow economic conditions, not an announcement alone.
Revision
A published figure changed after the fact as better data arrives. Rates on this site are readings and are not revised; most official statistics are, which is why the two can disagree about the same day.
Riba
Interest, in the sense forbidden by Islamic law: a return earned on money for the passage of time alone. It is why Iraqi Islamic banks structure financing as a sale or a partnership rather than a loan at a rate.
Risk appetite
How much loss a holder is willing to face for a chance at gain. It is personal, it changes with circumstances, and no rate table can tell you what yours should be.
Rounding
Settling a price at a convenient note-sized amount rather than an exact figure. Normal in Iraq because coins are effectively absent from daily use.
SWIFT
The messaging network banks use to instruct cross-border payments. It moves instructions, not money, which is why a transfer can be “sent” and still not have arrived.
Saddam dinar
The notes printed inside Iraq between 1991 and 2003, carrying Saddam Hussein’s portrait. Printed in enormous volume under sanctions, they lost most of their value and are the reason people still talk about the dinar in tens of thousands.
Sample
The set of readings a published figure is built from. A city rate here is a sample of the offices monitored there, not a census of every counter in the city.
Sanctions
Restrictions imposed by states on dealing with named people, firms or countries. A bank that breaches them loses its dollar access, which is why Iraqi banks screen names before they move money.
Sarraf
An exchange office or money changer. Sarrafs are where most people in Iraq actually buy and sell dollars, and their quotes are what the market rate on this site reflects.
Saudi riyal
Saudi Arabia’s currency, pegged to the dollar. Because of the peg, the riyal-to-dinar rate moves almost entirely with the dinar side.
Savings account
An account meant to hold money rather than move it, paying a return in a conventional bank or a profit share in an Islamic one.
Scrap gold
Old jewellery sold back to be melted. It fetches the metal value minus the making charge you paid when you bought it, which is why gold rarely returns what it cost.
Seasonal adjustment
Removing the part of a movement that happens every year at the same time — Ramadan, the Hajj season, the end of the fiscal year — so what is left is the part worth explaining.
Seigniorage
The profit a state makes from issuing money that costs less to print than it is worth. Lean on it too hard and the currency is worth less than the paper suggests, which is what hyperinflation is.
Serial number
The unique number printed on each banknote. Offices check them against counterfeit lists, and a run of sequential numbers on used notes is itself a reason to look twice.
Settlement
The moment both sides of a trade actually exchange value. A price agreed is not a trade completed, and the gap between the two carries risk.
Shell company
A registered company with no real operations, used to hold or move value while hiding who owns it. It is the standard vehicle behind over-invoiced imports.
Short position
Being committed to deliver a currency you do not yet hold, so a rise costs you. An importer who has agreed a dollar price but not yet bought the dollars is short in practice.
Silver
A precious metal quoted here alongside gold, in the same two units. It typically moves further than gold in both directions.
Slippage
The difference between the price you expected and the price you got. It grows with transaction size and with how fast the market is moving.
Small notes
Low-denomination banknotes. They are scarcer than large ones and an office short of them may quote slightly worse, which is a supply problem rather than a market signal.
Sovereign debt
What a government owes to lenders at home and abroad. Servicing it in dollars while earning in dinars is a standing claim on reserves, and therefore on the rate.
Speculation
Buying a currency in the hope its price rises rather than because you need it. Speculative demand can widen the gap between the official and the market rate faster than trade alone would.
Spot gold
The international price for immediate delivery of pure gold, quoted per troy ounce in dollars. It is the base from which the local mithqal figure is derived.
Spot rate
The rate for a transaction settled now rather than at a future date. Everything DinarView publishes is a spot rate.
Spread
On DinarView, the gap between the market rate and the central bank’s official rate — shown on the dollar page as "Spread to official". It is the number most people in Iraq actually feel. Elsewhere in finance the word means the gap between a bid and an ask.
Stablecoin
A digital token designed to hold a fixed value, usually one dollar. In Iraq they commonly trade above parity because demand for digital dollars exceeds easy supply.
Stagflation
Rising prices alongside a stalling economy. It is the hardest case for policy because the usual cure for one worsens the other.
Standard deviation
A measure of how spread out a set of readings is. A day with a low deviation means the city agreed on a price; a high one means it did not, and the headline number is doing more work than usual.
State banks
The government-owned banks that move most of Iraq’s public money. Their access to the central bank’s dollar auction is different from a private bank’s, and that difference is part of what the market rate prices in.
State budget
The government’s planned spending and revenue. Iraq’s budget assumes an oil price, and a gap between that assumption and reality feeds through to the dinar.
Sterilisation
A central bank offsetting the money it creates or removes when it intervenes in the currency market, so the intervention does not disturb domestic money supply.
Stop loss
A standing instruction to close a position once losses reach a set point. It caps the damage and guarantees you take it, which is the bargain.
Subsidy
A state payment that holds a price below its market level. Subsidised fuel and electricity change the cost base of a household and of a business.
Sukuk
Certificates giving the holder a share in a real asset and the income it produces, used where a conventional bond would pay interest. Iraq has issued them domestically to fund spending.
Support and resistance
Levels a price has repeatedly failed to break below or above. They describe past behaviour; treating them as a forecast is where the discipline turns into superstition.
Suspicious transaction report
The filing a bank makes when a movement of money does not fit what it knows about the customer. It goes to the financial intelligence unit and the customer is not told.
Swap line
A standing agreement between central banks to exchange currencies when one needs the other’s. It is the emergency dollar supply that spares a country from spending reserves.
Swap points
The adjustment between a spot rate and a forward rate, set by the interest gap between two currencies. It is the arithmetic behind why a rate quoted for next month is not today’s rate.
Swiss dinar
The pre-1991 Iraqi dinar, printed in Britain from Swiss plates. After the Gulf War the north kept using it while the south moved to locally printed notes, and the two traded at wildly different rates until the 2003 reform replaced both.
Takaful
Cooperative insurance where members contribute to a common fund that pays members’ claims. It replaces conventional insurance for those who avoid contracts carrying gharar.
Take profit
An instruction to close a position once a chosen gain is reached. Setting one in advance is how a trader avoids deciding while excited.
Tax evasion
Illegally not paying tax owed, as distinct from lawfully arranging affairs to owe less. It shrinks the revenue base and pushes the state toward borrowing or printing.
Technical analysis
Reading price history for patterns rather than reading the economy. It has more to work with on a freely traded market than on a managed one like the dinar’s.
Terrorist financing
Providing funds to armed groups, whatever the source of the money. It is regulated alongside laundering because the controls are the same even though the direction of the money is opposite.
Tether (USDT)
A stablecoin meant to hold one dollar in value. It is how a lot of cross-border crypto value actually moves, and its peg has slipped before, which is the risk in treating it as cash.
Time series
A sequence of values recorded over time. The history chart on this site is a time series, and it is what turns today’s number into context.
Timestamp
The moment a figure was recorded. On a market that trades all day, a rate without a timestamp is not a rate you can act on.
Tola
A South Asian weight of about 11.66 grams, still used in some Gulf gold markets. It turns up in Iraq mainly on imported bars, and converting it wrong is a common way to misread a price.
Torn note
A damaged banknote. Dollars are judged strictly in Iraq: a tear or a mark can cost several per cent, and the cleanest notes fetch the quoted rate.
Trade Bank of Iraq
The state bank set up to handle letters of credit and foreign trade payments. Importers who cannot get dollars through it are the ones who turn to the open market, which is one route by which the two rates pull apart.
Trade balance
The difference between what a country exports and imports. Iraq’s is dominated by oil, which is why the dinar tracks oil revenue closely.
Transfer ceiling
The most that may be sent in one transaction or one period. Ceilings push large sums into several transfers or into hawala, which is why tightening them rarely reduces the flow.
Transfer fee
The flat charge for sending money, separate from the rate margin. Two services with the same fee can cost very differently once the rate is compared.
Travel money
Currency bought for a trip abroad. Airport and hotel counters price well away from the street, so the rate here is the number to compare their offer against.
Treasury bill
Short-term government borrowing, usually under a year, sold at a discount and repaid at face value. Iraqi banks hold them heavily, which ties bank balance sheets to the state budget.
Trend
The direction a series is travelling once daily noise is set aside. A month of readings shows a trend; two days show weather.
Troy ounce
The unit gold and silver are priced in worldwide, equal to about 31.1 grams — heavier than the ordinary ounce used for everything else. Every metal price on this site starts as a troy ounce; the mithqal figure is converted from it.
Turkish lira
Turkey’s currency, widely met in northern Iraq through trade and travel. It has been notably volatile, so a lira figure ages faster than most.
Two-way price
A quote that names both what the dealer will pay and what they will charge. Any honest exchange office gives one; a single number on a board is only half the picture.
UAE dirham
The United Arab Emirates currency, also pegged to the dollar. Commonly met by Iraqis through Gulf trade and travel.
US dollar
The currency Iraq’s oil is sold in and the one most local savings are held in. Every other rate on this board is anchored to it.
Unbanked
People with no bank account at all. They are paid in cash, save in cash or gold, and meet the exchange rate only at a counter — which is the reader this site is written for.
Value date
The day a transfer counts as money in the account, which may be after the day it was sent. Rates are applied on the value date, not on the day you pressed send.
Volatility
How much a rate moves about over a period, regardless of direction. A quiet month and a violent one can end at the same number. Our charts show it directly: pick a longer range and the shape of the line, not its endpoints, is the volatility.
Volume
How much of something changed hands in a period. Thin volume means a quoted price may not survive an actual transaction of any size.
Wasta
Using a personal connection to obtain what should be allocated on merit or in turn. It is ordinary enough to be unremarkable and corrosive enough to be the reason a queue means nothing.
Weighted average
An average where some readings count for more than others — by volume, by size of office, or by how recent they are. It answers a different question from a plain average and should be labelled as such.
Western Union
A cash remittance network with agents across Iraq. Its payout rate is set by the operator rather than by the street, so it is usually a few dinars off the market rate published here.
World Bank
A development lender and a large publisher of economic data on Iraq. Its figures are useful background but are annual and revised, not a live rate.
Yield
What an investment actually returns as a percentage of what you paid for it, not of its face value. It is the number to compare across instruments; the coupon is not.
Zain Cash
A mobile wallet licensed by the central bank, used for salary payments and transfers. Balances are held in dinars, so moving money through it does not expose you to the dollar rate at all.
Zakat
The obligatory annual charge on wealth held above a threshold for a full year, including cash, gold and trading stock. Savings kept in dollars or gold are assessed at their value on the day it falls due.
Try a shorter word, or browse the letters above.