NumberFormat.parse() fails for some currency strings

Since the answers that have been suggested thus far, did not completely solve the problem, I took a painfully amateurish approach:

String value = "$24,76" 
value = value.replace(getCurrencySymbol(locale), StringUtils.EMPTY);

NumberFormat numberFormat = NumberFormat.getInstance(locale);
Number result = numberFormat.parse(value);

So now I simply strip the String value off it's currency symbol... This way I can process everything I want, such as: 45.78 or 45,78 or $45.78 or 45,78€ ....

Whatever the input, the currency symbol is simply stripped and I end up with the plain number. My unittests (see OP) now complete successfully.

If anyone comes up with something better, please let me know.

Try following:

NumberFormat numberFormat = new DecimalFormat("¤#.00", new DecimalFormatSymbols(Locale.UK));
numberFormat.parse("£123.5678");

¤ - currency sign, expects matches with currency symbol by Locale.

other pattern symbols you can see by following link http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/text/DecimalFormat.html