The exchange market for hard currencies and Dominican pesos has handled over US$61 billion over the past 14 years. This money has been exchanged by commercial banks and money exchange houses all over the country. Part of the whole process was the legalization of exchange houses that before 1997 were considered to be a parallel or informal market, and outside the law. In 1997, just a little over US$2,01 billion was exchanged, but when the exchange houses were legalized, the numbers jumped to US$4.01 billion in 1998. In 2004, the exchange market handled US$8.639 billion and 49.9% was handled through the commercial banks. For the first nine months of 2005, the commercial banks have exchanged US$4.8 billion (56% of the total) and the exchange houses have dealt with US$3.7 billion (44% of the total).