Editing European Currency Unit (section)

== Symbol and name ==
The ECU's symbol, '''₠''', consists of an interlaced ''C'' and ''E''{{Hsp}}—the initials of "[[European Economic Community|European Community]]" in many [[languages of Europe]]. However, the symbol was not widely adopted. Few computer systems utilized by financial institutions and governments could render it, and commercial payment systems were obliged to use the ISO code, XEU, as with other currencies without widely recognised currency symbols. The [[Unicode]] designation for the ECU symbol ({{Unichar|20A0|EURO-CURRENCY SIGN}}) was not implemented on many personal computer operating systems until the release of Unicode v2.1 in May 1998, which also introduced the [[euro sign]] ({{Unichar|20AC|EURO SIGN}}). [[Microsoft]] did include the ECU symbol in many of its European versions of [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] beginning in the early 1990s; however, accessing it required the use of an [[Alt code]], and not all typefaces provided a glyph. By 2009, Microsoft referred to the ECU symbol as "historical".<ref>{{Cite web|date=25 June 2009|title=euro Currency Symbol FAQ|url=https://www.microsoft.com/typography/EuroSymbolFAQ.mspx|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121205061421/https://www.microsoft.com/typography/EuroSymbolFAQ.mspx|archive-date=5 December 2012|access-date=18 August 2020|website=[[Microsoft]]}}</ref> Support among other operating systems, including [[Macintosh operating systems]], was inconsistent.

Although the acronym for ECU is formed from the English name of the unit, the [[écu]] was a family of gold coins minted during the reign of [[Louis IX of France]]. The name of the ECU's successor, the [[euro]], was chosen because the name did not favor any single language, nation, or historical period.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ungerer|first=Horst|title=A Concise History of European Monetary Integration: From EPU to EMU|date=July 1997|publisher=Quorum Books|isbn=9780899309811|location=Westport, Connecticut|page=286}}</ref>