Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

What Is the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)?

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution that has the main goal of promoting global monetary as well as financial stability through coordinating global central banks as well as their monetary policy efforts.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is often called the central bank for central banks, due to the fact that it provides many of the banking services to institutions such as the European Central Bank as well as the Federal Reserve.

These services can include things such as conducting gold and currency transactions as well as allowing them to make short-term collateralized loans.

The BIS also aims to encourage cooperation across central banks.

Discussing its history, it was originally founded in 1930 as a clearinghouse for the German war reparations which were imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

The original BIS members were Japan, Italy, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. Reparations were discontinued after the bank was founded, and the BIS managed to become a forum for cooperation and a counterparty for transactions across central banks.

As an organization of the central banks, the BIS’s main goal to make the monetary policy predictable as well as transparent across the 60-member central banks.

Now, while monetary policy is determined by most sovereign nations, it is still subject to central as well as private banking scrutiny as well as the potential for speculation, which affects foreign exchange rates and the rate of export economies. Here is where BIS aims to keep the monetary policy in line with reality and help implement any monetary reforms on time, as a simultaneous policy across all 60 member banks as well as the involvement of the International Monetary Fund.