DESIGN OF AN AUTOMATED COMPUTER BASED CURRENCY EXCHANGER SYSTEM

INTRODUCTION
1.1        BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The market of foreign exchange has become the largest financial market in the world today. And it’s operating virtually around the world, the foreign market trades enormous amount of money which is estimated several trillion dollars daily. The introduction of the new system to the foreign exchange market will help reduce errors and problernsre1ated to currency exchange which the old system has been unable to solve. This is a brief idea of the old and new system of currency exchange services.
 
A country’s currency is a legal tender generally accepted or used in the exchange of goods and services. In such a way the currency of other countries are considered foreign to other countries. Individuals who are citizens of a country can at any point in time need money in foreign currency, for some reason. For example a Nigerian citizen could be involved in a certain business transaction involving the use of US dollars; he or she at this point in time will need to exchange his naira to its dollars equivalent to suit his purpose.
 
Likewise an European visiting Nigerian will need to carry out an exchange of currency since he cannot use euro in Nigerian for payments of transactions, hence there is need to device currency exchange system that will handle the process of exchanging a local currency for a foreign currency and vice-versa. This is the focus of this study and its primary aim is to introduce an automated system that will ease the burden of manual currency exchange in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
 
1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Currency exchange services are still manually operated in most banks today and this poses a lot of problem as a resultwhich exchange processes fail to meet with the desired objectives. Below are some problems associated with the manual method.
Delay in foreign exchange transaction.
Imbalance of accounts transaction.
Difficulties in the arrangement and retrieval’ of records.
Inability to meet up effectively the challenges of modern business management operations.
Excessive consumption of paper and time.
 
1.3 AIM  AND OBJECTIVES .
 
The primary aim of this study is to device and implement an automated (Computerized) system to help carry out currency exchange transaction which will be faster at the long run and less tedious than the manual method. The processed system is aimed at eliminating majority, if not all the problems brought about by the adoption of the manual system. I therefore, believe that the system would be good enough to achieve the following objective ;
 

• Quicken the process involved in currency exchange transaction.
• Provide accurate and maximum security to information security and records.
• Keeping record of transactions made for future references.
• Ensures less consumption of paper document.
• Provide balance accounts of transactions.
• Generally make work easier and more convenient for the staff and management of the bank.

 
1.4   SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study covers the conversion of currencies of eight different countries which include USA (dollars) UK (pounds) German (Deut she mark) France (French Frances) japan (yen) Switzerland (Swiss franc) European Union (euro) and Ghana (cedi) into Nigeria equivalent which is the Nigeria currency.
 
1.4   OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
 
The objectives of this research, is to implement currency exchange system that will be able:
1.To record the name of each customer, choose and record the amount currency type he/she  wishes to convert.
2.To produce the current exchange rate, save/delete each customer’s transaction.
3.To produce the naira equivalent of the currency being converted.
4.To produce and deduct the bank commission customer is obliged to  pay from naira equivalent.
5.To produce the net amount in naira the customer get at the end of the transaction.
Also an attempt is made to implement the currency exchange system in php programming language.
 
1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
 
This sub topic aims at identifying the existing problems associated with manual system of currency exchange transaction in order to achieve a desired goal in the newly proposed system for efficiency in currency markets.
 
But it is specifically designed to work in the Central Bank of Nigeria. Hence, certain modifications have to be made if it has to work for any other bank. The issue of exchange rate fluctuation, merchandise trade balance and flow of funds between countries to pay stocks and bounds purchased and the rate of inflation other limitations to be reckoned with if this system is to be effectively implemented.
 
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
 

• Automation: The use of automated machine such as computers is an organization for rapid processing test.
• Merchandise Trade Balance: It is the net difference between thevalue of merchandise trade balance being exported and imported into a particular country.
• Manual System: These are systems that are put into work using bare hand or physical skill(effort).
• Computer Program: A set of instructions meant to be obeyed by the computer in order to accomplish a specific purpose.
• Database: A collection of stored operational data used as information of related records for easy reference.
• Database Management System (DBMS): It is a collection of programs that enable users create and maintain a database.
• Algorithm: This is the method of solving a problem using operation for a given set of basic operation which produces the answers in a given set of basic operation which produces in a finite step.
• Flowchart: It is a diagrammatic representation of algorithm using a limited set of symbols that outlines the program before writing it.
• Pseudo code: It is a distribution of an algorithm using English expression, mathematical notation and a limited set of special command to represent the actual program.