Money

The currency symbol for the Danish krone is DKK, and the plural form is kroner. 

This is pretty similar to Sweden's krona and Norway's krone.

The rule of thumb for quickly converting from DKK to USD is that the conversion rate is 1 USD is about 5.5 DKK, so you can divide by 5 and just round down to the nearest dollar. That's what I've been doing and it gives a good rough estimate.

Currency

There are 6 different kinds of coins, and 5 kinds of bills in circulation and main use in Denmark. Here's a couple of tables that show what they look like and their values. I'm putting in a US dollar value based on the current conversion rate of 5.38.

The smallest coin is 50 øre, which is the equivalent of cents. 100 øre makes 1 krone.

Picture
Value (DKK)	0.50	1	2	5	10	20
Value (USD)	0.09	0.18	0.36	0.93	1.86	3.72

Picture
Value (DKK)	50	100	200	500	1000
Value (USD)	9.30	18.60	37.21	93.02	186.03

A few things to note/notice:

• I can't say I've actually seen a DKK 1000 note floating around anywhere.
• The gold colored 10 and 20 DKK coins are pretty handy.
• I want to point out that all of the bills above are logically sized, even though you can't tell on here. When you hold them in your hand, you'll see that the larger the value of currency, the larger the piece of paper. 
• Oh and would you look at that? They're even different colors.

I have to say they're easier to tell apart than US currency which is all green and all the same size. Of course, growing up in the US I didn't really notice it, but I can imagine it could be a bit of an issue for some visitors to the US.

Final thing about currency: a lot of places have these machines that the cashier just puts the currency in, and the change (if there is any in bill form) will be spit out. I know it's nothing revolutionary, but I kind of wonder why this didn't make it past the self check-out lines at grocery stores.

Credit/Debit Cards

The first thing that probably popped into your head regarding American credit cards in Europe is the foreign transaction fees. Yes they're very real, and very expensive if you're not careful. Here are some basic steps to help you. 

1. Don't use Discover Card, because no one knows what it is.
2. Use MasterCard or Visa since they're actual brands that people have heard of everywhere.
3. Don't use Discover Card.
4. ???
5. Profit

As you can tell, I hate Discover. Hypothetically, it should work relatively well in Europe because they have a collaboration with Diners Club International to not have any foreign transaction fees. But, it doesn't work. Not just the fees part; the card doesn't work at all. I'm not going to bother ranting on it in this post, but if you want to follow me raging about it, stay tuned. 

Back to business: the real options. That link should give you quite a few choices with MasterCard. A couple of friends of mine have the Bank of Americard and Chase Sapphire cards, and they seem to working fine with no foreign transaction fees. If you are already customers of these two banks, look into these card choices.

You can also get "cash advances" from ATMs with credit cards if you're really short on cash. I would not recommend this unless it's a dire emergency because you'll end up paying atleast 10% extra in fees.

One caveat with credit cards is that the vendor could end up charging you extra since you're paying in dollars and not DKK/Euros. I'm not sure how applicable this is, but I've heard stories, so keep it in mind.

Prepaid Cards

The other good option is prepaid cards. These are sort of like those Visa gift cards that have come around in the past few years (the ones that are gift cards but can be used anywhere). You buy it, put some money on it in your home currency, then the card converts it into the vendor's local currency at the point of sale. You don't get charged any foreign transaction fees, and the vendor gets the money in the local currency. Everyone wins. 

For this option, you have two choices: a MasterCard Net+ or a Visa MoneyCorp. I haven't looked into these options much, but I know a friend is using his here in Denmark and he used it in Sweden. There are probably some fees depending on the card but you can do more research into that. 

I've noticed quite a few local credit cards are chip based instead of just magnetic stripe, and there are point of sale terminals to match. 

Any time you want to buy a ticket at a train station, you will have to use some sort of card, so bear that in mind. 

Final tips: always always always have more than one card. The chances of an American card not working in another country are relatively high, so make sure you have a backup. The same goes for cash. I know that plastic has its conveniences, but the fact is, if you're in an unfamiliar place, having some cash to buy some food when you're lost and hungry is a lot more convenient when your card decides to not work.

Banks

First off, you will need a CPR number from your municipality if you want to open a bank account. Technically, everyone is required to open a Nemkonto, or "Easy Account". This is really only necessary for times where the government wants to put money into your account, for tax returns and such. 

As a student who will probably not be working here, you can go to any bank (I recommend Nordea; from what I've heard they're a good bank and are in Norway and Sweden as well) and ask for a free account. Just tell them you're a student with no income. From what I've heard, there are no opening, maintenance, or other hidden fees, and you get a debit card for free. Furthermore, there is an ATM on campus of Danske Bank, but there are no fees if you withdraw from a Nordea account on it. 

To open an account, go to a branch. There are two branches in Lyngby: nearest one is by the Lyngby Storcenter/Station across from Magasin and Danske Bank. 

If you're like me and you're using cash everywhere, you'll find that there are quite a few situations where cash doesn't really work (buying train tickets especially), and of course it's inconvenient at times. I really wish I could open an account, but I had some issues with the residence permit, and now I can't get a CPR number. That combined with the fact that I'm only here for another 2.5 months, it's not really worth all the trouble. 

Last thing to mention here is that having a CPR number and bank account is necessary for getting a Rejsekort (Travel Card), which you'd need starting June since clip cards are no longer going to be used. This is probably confusing to you right now so look for my post on public transportation. The same thing goes for getting a contract with a mobile phone provider: you will need a bank account, for which you'd need a CPR number.