Reuters, a major international news agency long involved in the circulation of financial information, also moved quickly to develop a new computer system for sending out currency prices. Using leased telecommunication lines to banks and other customers, Reuters created the beginnings of a virtual international currency exchange market. Banks paid for receiving currency price quotes and news and could also pay to list their prices with the service. With floating currency values due to the breakdown of the Bretton Woods gold-dollar standard, exchange rates became very volatile, especially after the Arab-Israeli war broke out in late 1973.

Reuters’ new system called Monitor displayed monetary values on computer screens in banks around the world and created a new dimension to the electronic marketplace that had been created initially by the introduction of the telegraph and the ticker tape machines.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is the Professor of Global Media at Hannam University in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. He also taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii in the 1990s.