Bank for International Settlements

Early-20th-century former building of Hôtel de l'Univers at Centralbahnstrasse 7 in Basel, the seat of the BIS from 1930 to 1977

American banker Owen D. Young played a central role in the conception and establishment of the BIS in 1929-1930

Central bankers Montagu Norman (for the UK) and Hjalmar Schacht (for Germany) were influential in the BIS during the late Interwar period

The BIS was created by Montagu Norman in the context of the Young Plan, on the initiative of a group of American bankers including Owen D. Young, J. P. Morgan Jr., Thomas W. Lamont, S. Parker Gilbert, and Jackson Reynolds, with further elaboration in the spring of 1929 by Owen Young with input from Shepard Morgan, Warren Randolph Burgess, Walter W. Stewart as well as Belgian official Émile Francqui and German central banker Hjalmar Schacht. Political positions within the Herbert Hoover administration made it impossible for U.S. Federal Reserve System officials to participate directly in the initiative, but the U.S. was still able to retain the roles of BIS chairman and president (held by private bankers in liaison with the Federal Reserve) during the bank's first half-decade of operation.[6]

The BIS's original role was thus to facilitate reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, and to act as the trustee for the German Government International Loan (Young Loan) that was floated in 1930.[7] The need to establish a dedicated institution for this purpose was suggested in 1929 by the Young Committee, and was agreed to in August of that year at a conference at The Hague. The charter for the bank was drafted at the International Bankers Conference at Baden-Baden in November. The founding texts of the BIS were subsequently signed in The Hague on 20 January 1930: a convention (namely an intergovernmental agreement) between Germany, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Switzerland, establishing the bank's special status on Swiss soil;[8] and a Constituent Charter for the bank, signed by the National Bank of Belgium, Bank of France, Reichsbank, Bank of England, Bank of Italy, Bank of Japan, and a group of U.S. banks formed by J.P. Morgan & Co., the First National Bank of New York, and the First National Bank of Chicago. The BIS promptly opened its doors in Basel on 17 May 1930.[9] According to the charter, shares in the bank could be held by individuals and non-governmental entities. However, the rights of voting and representation at the Bank's General Meeting were to be exercised exclusively by the central banks of the countries in which shares had been issued. It also enjoyed certain immunities in the contracting states (Brussels Protocol 1936).[10]

The BIS's original task of facilitating World War I reparation payments quickly became obsolete. Reparation payments were first suspended (Hoover moratorium, June 1931) and then abolished altogether (Lausanne Agreement, July 1932). Instead, the BIS focused on its second statutory task, i.e. fostering the cooperation between its member central banks. It acted as a meeting forum for central banks and provided banking facilities to them. For instance, in the late 1930s, the BIS was instrumental in helping continental European central banks ship out part of their gold reserves to London.[11]

As a purportedly apolitical organization, the BIS was unable to prevent transactions that reflected contemporaneous geopolitical realities, but were also widely regarded as unconscionable. As a result of the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany by the UK and France, in March 1939, the BIS was obliged to transfer 23 tons of gold it held, on behalf of Czechoslovakia, to the German Reichsbank, following the German annexation of Czechoslovakia.[12]

At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the BIS Board of Directors – on which the main European central banks were represented – decided that the Bank should remain open, but that, for the duration of hostilities, no meetings of the Board of Directors were to take place and that the Bank should maintain a neutral stance in the conduct of its business. However, as the war dragged on evidence mounted that the BIS conducted operations that were helpful to the Germans. Also, throughout the war, the Allies accused the Nazis of looting and pleaded with the BIS not to accept gold from the Reichsbank in payment for prewar obligations linked to the Young Plan. This was to no avail as remelted gold was either confiscated from prisoners or seized in victory and thus unacceptable as payment to the BIS.[13]^{: 245–252} Operations conducted by the BIS were viewed with increasing suspicion from London and Washington. The fact that top-level German industrialists and advisors sat on the BIS board seemed to provide ample evidence of how the BIS might be used by Hitler throughout the war, with the help of American, British and French banks. Between 1933 and 1945 the BIS board of directors included Walther Funk, a prominent Nazi official, and Emil Puhl responsible for processing dental gold looted from concentration camp victims, as well as Hermann Schmitz, the director of IG Farben, and Baron von Schroeder, the owner of the J. H. Stein Bank, all of whom were later convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity.[14]

The 1944 Bretton Woods Conference recommended the "liquidation of the Bank for International Settlements at the earliest possible moment". This resulted in the BIS being the subject of a disagreement between the U.S. and British delegations. The liquidation of the bank was supported by other European delegates, as well as Americans (including Harry Dexter White and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr.).[15] Abolition was opposed by John Maynard Keynes, head of the British delegation.

Keynes went to Morgenthau hoping to prevent or postpone the dissolution, but the next day it was approved; the liquidation of the bank was never actually undertaken.[16] In April 1945, the new U.S. president Harry S. Truman ended U.S. involvement in the scheme. The British government suspended the dissolution and the decision to liquidate the BIS was officially reversed in 1948.[17]

Botta building in Basel, acquired by the BIS in 1998

After World War II, the BIS retained a distinct European focus. According to an announcement made by the Swiss Government on 26 December 1952, Japan renounced all rights, titles and interests in the BIS it had acquired under the Hague Convention of January 1930. The BIS acted as Agent for the European Payments Union (EPU, 1950–58), an intra-European clearing arrangement designed to help the European countries in restoring currency convertibility and free, multilateral trade.[18] During the 1960s – the heyday of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system – the BIS once again became the locus for transatlantic monetary cooperation. It coordinated the central banks' Gold Pool[19]^: 416 and a number of currency support operations (e.g. Sterling Group Arrangements of 1966 and 1968. The Group of Ten (G10), including the main European economies, Canada, Japan, and the United States, became the most prominent grouping.

The BIS acquired land near the Basel SBB railway station between 1966 and 1972. Architect Martin Burckhardt made three design proposals in 1969, among which the Board of the BIS selected an 82-meter high round tower. This was opposed by locals and their representation in the Swiss Heritage Society, which led to a public referendum in 1971 in which 69% of voters endorsed a revised design with reduced height. The BIS moved into the new premises, sometimes dubbed the "Tower of Basel," in 1977.

With the end of the Bretton Woods system (1971–73) and the return to floating exchange rates, financial instability came to the fore. The collapse of some internationally active banks, such as Herstatt Bank (1974), highlighted the need for improved banking supervision at an international level. The G10 Governors created the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), which remains active. The BIS developed into a global meeting place for regulators and for developing international standards (Basel Concordat, Basel Capital Accord, Basel II and III). Through its member central banks, the BIS was actively involved in the resolution of the Latin American debt crisis (1982).

From 1964 until 1993, the BIS provided the secretariat for the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Community (Committee of Governors).[20] This Committee had been created by the European Council decision to improve monetary cooperation among the EC central banks. Likewise, the BIS in 1988–89 hosted most of the meetings of the Delors Committee (Committee for the Study of Economic and Monetary Union), which produced a blueprint for monetary unification subsequently adopted in the Maastricht Treaty (1992). In 1993, when the Committee of Governors was replaced by the European Monetary Institute (EMI – the precursor of the ECB), it moved from Basel to Frankfurt, cutting its ties with the BIS.

In 1998, the BIS acquired a second building on Aeschenplatz 1 in Basel, designed in 1986 by Mario Botta and previously owned and used by UBS. Since then, the BIS has used that building to host its banking operations on behalf of member central banks.

The BIS representative office for Asia and the Pacific is located in the International Financial Centre Tower 2 (left) in Hong Kong

In the 1990s–2000s, the BIS successfully globalized, breaking out of its traditional European core. This was reflected in a gradual increase in its membership (from 33 shareholding central bank members in 1995 to 60 in 2013, which together represent roughly 95% of global GDP), and also in the much more global composition of the BIS Board of Directors. In 1998, the BIS opened a Representative Office for Asia and the Pacific in the Hong Kong SAR. A BIS Representative Office for the Americas was established in 2002 in Mexico City.

The BIS was originally owned by both central banks and private individuals, since the United States, Belgium and France had decided to sell all or some of the shares allocated to their central banks to private investors. BIS shares traded on stock markets, which made the bank an unusual organization: an international organization (in the technical sense of public international law), yet allowed for private shareholders. Many central banks had similarly started as such private institutions; for example, the Bank of England was privately owned until 1946. In more recent years the BIS has bought back its once publicly traded shares.[21] It is now wholly owned by BIS members (central banks), but still operates in the private market as a counterparty, asset manager and lender for central banks and international financial institutions.[22] Profits from its transactions are used, among other things, to fund the bank's other international activities.

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, in March 2022 the BIS suspended the Bank of Russia's membership.[23]

The Global Economy Meeting has been held every other month since 1998, generally in Basel, and serves a major role in the global central banking community. It typically happens on a Monday morning and is preceded by a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee on Sunday. With the suspension of Russia since March 2022, 30 jurisdictions are members of the GEM and an additional 22 participate as observers (see membership list above).

The BIS hosts the Secretariat of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), colloquially referred to simply as the "Basel Committee", and with it has played a central role in establishing the Basel Capital Accords (now commonly referred to as Basel I) of 1988, Basel II framework in 2004 and more recently Basel III framework in 2010-2017.

Capital adequacy policy applies to equity and capital assets. These can be overvalued in many circumstances because they do not always reflect current market conditions or adequately assess the risk of every trading position. Accordingly, the Basel standards require the capital adequacy ratio of internationally active commercial banks to be above a prescribed minimum international standard, to improve the resilience of the banking sector.

The Committee on the Global Financial System (CGFS) was established in 1971 as the Euro-currency Standing Committee, and adopted its current name in 1999. It reports to the Global Economy Meeting.

As of 2023, it had 28 members: Central Bank of Argentina, Reserve Bank of Australia, National Bank of Belgium, Central Bank of Brazil, Bank of Canada, People's Bank of China, European Central Bank, Bank of France, Deutsche Bundesbank, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Reserve Bank of India, Bank of Italy, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Central Bank of Luxembourg, Bank of Mexico, De Nederlandsche Bank, Central Bank of Russia, Saudi Central Bank, Monetary Authority of Singapore, South African Reserve Bank, Bank of Spain, Sveriges Riksbank, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Thailand, Bank of England, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Markets Committee is the oldest of the BIS-hosted committees, originally established in 1962 as the Committee on Gold and Foreign Exchange. It also reports to the Global Economy Meeting.

As of 2023, it had 27 members: Reserve Bank of Australia, National Bank of Belgium, Central Bank of Brazil, Bank of Canada, People's Bank of China, European Central Bank, Bank of France, Deutsche Bundesbank, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Reserve Bank of India, Bank of Indonesia, Bank of Italy, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Central Bank of Malaysia, Bank of Mexico, De Nederlandsche Bank, Central Bank of Russia, Monetary Authority of Singapore, South African Reserve Bank, Bank of Spain, Sveriges Riksbank, Swiss National Bank, Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye, Bank of England, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Another of the committees hosted at the BIS is the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI). The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) was established in 1990 and extended the prior work of the Group of Experts on Payment Systems (1980) and Committee on Interbank Netting Schemes (1989), and was in turn renamed to CPMI in 2014. Its membership was extended in 1997-98, 2009, and 2018 to reach the following 28 members: Central Bank of Argentina, Reserve Bank of Australia, National Bank of Belgium, Central Bank of Brazil, Bank of Canada, People's Bank of China, European Central Bank, Bank of France, Deutsche Bundesbank, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Reserve Bank of India, Bank Indonesia, Bank of Italy, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico, De Nederlandsche Bank, Central Bank of Russia, Saudi Central Bank, Monetary Authority of Singapore, South African Reserve Bank, Bank of Spain, Sveriges Riksbank, Swiss National Bank, Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye, Bank of England, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

One of the Group's first projects, a detailed review of payment system developments in the G10 countries, was published by the BIS in 1985 in the first of a series that has become known as "Red Books". Currently, the red books cover countries participating in the CPMI.[27] A sample of statistical data in the red books appears in the table below, where local currency is converted to US dollars using end-of-year rates.[28]

The Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics gathers 100 members, mostly national central banks as well as a few regional organizations such as the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), Central American Monetary Council, and South East Asian Central Banks Centre (SEACEN). It is led by an 11-member executive elected by its members.

Reserve policy is also important, especially to consumers and the domestic economy. To ensure liquidity and limit liability to the larger economy, banks cannot create money in specific industries or regions without limit. To make bank depositing and borrowing safer for customers and reduce the risk of bank runs, banks are required to set aside or "reserve".

Reserve policy is harder to standardize, as it depends on local conditions and is often fine-tuned to make industry-specific or region-specific changes, especially within large developing nations. For instance, the People's Bank of China requires urban banks to hold 7% reserves while letting rural banks continue to hold only 6%, and simultaneously telling all banks that reserve requirements on certain overheated industries would rise sharply or penalties would be laid if investments in them did not stop completely. The PBoC is thus unusual in acting as a national bank, focused on the country and not on the currency, but its desire to control asset inflation is increasingly shared among BIS members who fear "bubbles", and among exporting countries that find it difficult to manage the diverse requirements of the domestic economy, especially rural agriculture, and an export economy, especially in manufactured goods.

Effectively, the PBoC sets different reserve levels for domestic and export styles of development. Historically, the United States also did this, by dividing federal monetary management into nine regions, in which the less-developed western United States had looser policies.

For various reasons, it has become quite difficult to accurately assess reserves on more than simple loan instruments, and this plus the regional differences has tended to discourage standardizing any reserve rules at the global BIS scale. Historically, the BIS did set some standards which favoured lending money to private landowners (at about 5 to 1) and for-profit corporations (at about 2 to 1) over loans to individuals. These distinctions reflecting classical economics were superseded by policies relying on undifferentiated market values – more in line with neoclassical economics.

The Financial Stability Institute is dedicated to debates and exchanges of practices among supervisors and financial stability policymakers. It was established in 1999 in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It has been led by Josef Tošovský from December 2000 to December 2016, and by Fernando Restoy since January 2017.

The BIS hosts the secretariats of the Financial Stability Board, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, and International Association of Deposit Insurers. These entities, unlike the above listed committees, have no direct reporting links to the BIS.

BIS denominates its reserve in IMF special drawing rights. The balance sheet total of the BIS on 31 March 2019 was SDR 291.1 billion (US$403.7 billion) and a net profit of SDR 461.1 million (US$639.5 million).[29]

As of May 2023: