The Brazilian real is the official currency of Brazil and is abbreviated as BRL. One ‘real’ is made up of 100 centavos. The Brazilian real used today was introduced back in 1994; when introduced it was pegged against the US dollar at an exchange rate of 1:1. It uses a dollar-like symbol with the exception being that it has two vertical lines instead of one. A bit of a difficult one to pronounce, it is actually pronounced "hey-al". The plural of the real is reais and is pronounced "hey-ice". The most commonly used denominations are: R$2, R$5, R$10, R$20, R$50, R$100.