If you haven’t heard by now, Malaysia has changed its currency from Malaysian Dollars to Ringgit Malaysia (RM). The use of Ringgit wasn’t implemented until the 1990’s and the Dollar sign ($) was changed to RM. Its international currency code is now MYR and it is more widely known as such.
There have been several revisions to the paper currency in Malaysia with the 2nd and 3rd series still being in legal tender. It is advisable to look up the images for Malaysian currency to familiarize yourself with it just so you don’t accidentally give out an RM50 note for a RM1 bottle of mineral water.
There are only 6 denominations for paper money in Malaysia. The Ringgit only comes in RM1, RM2, RM5, RM10, RM50 and RM100 notes. All of them are different in colour and size. They also depict different images that represent Malaysia’s culture and infrastructure such as KLIA, Mount Kinabalu, the Wau, the Petronas Twin Towers and many more. It is these differences that makes the Ringgit easily recognizable.
Malaysian currency also consists of coins and 1 Ringgit is divided into 100 cents (or “sen” in Bahasa Melayu). Similar to coins around the world, Malaysian cents come in denominations of 1c, 5c, 10c, 20c and 50c. To be consistent with the paper currency, each coin has an image on one side that depicts Malaysia’s culture and infrastructure.
There are many money changers around Kuala Lumpur. Most shopping malls would have at least one money changer to aid the foreign visitors when shopping. If not, credit cards are accepted in almost all retail outlets. For the latest foreign exchange rate, check out SD’s currency converter.
