DECIMAL data type

If a database is not ANSI-compliant, a DECIMAL data type that you declare with a precision but no scale can store floating point values of the specified precision. If you specify neither precision nor scale, the default precision is 16.

In an ANSI-compliant database, all DECIMAL values are fixed-point and must be declared with an explicit precision. If you specify no scale for the DECIMAL data type, the scale = 0, and only integer values can be stored.