The creation of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in 1929 to deal with the settlement of First World War reparations payments was seen by central banks as an opportunity to put international cooperation on an institutional footing. Their initial vision of what the BIS might achieve in support of the gold exchange standard was ambitious. In the view of Montagu Norman and Hjalmar Schacht, the BIS needed to become a forum not merely for information exchange and for refining the techniques of managing the gold exchange standard, but a truly cooperative organisation capable of providing support to central banks in emergencies and for developing new financial arrangements. This chapter investigates the scope of the Norman-Schacht vision, as well as attempts to put this vision into practice (e.g. through the BIS study committee on medium-term credits, or through the BIS-coordinated interventions in the Austrian banking and financial crisis of May-June 1931). Based on research in the historical archives of the BIS, this chapter assesses whether the Norman-Schacht vision for the BIS failed because of differences in policies and goals among the central banks, or rather because of the disruptive effects of the Great Depression.

The Gold Pool was an international gold control syndicated created in 1961. It brought together most western countries to defend the London gold price. The syndicate was secret to start with, but quickly rumours of its existence spread. And it helped stabilise the price of gold in London.

The Fed was keen the cooperate with the Bank from early in the 1960s. The Bank on the other hand took time to warm up and share information with colleagues at the Fed. But progressively swaps became a key feature of the United Kingdom's exchange management strategy. They offered cheap and discreet short-term dollar loans. The Bank started to use and abuse these loans to manage sterling.

This chapter traces the origins of the European monetary unification project. The 1957 Treaty of Rome called for monetary policy coordination within the EEC. To achieve this, a committee of governors of the EEC central banks was created (1964). The governors chose the BIS in Basel as their meeting place to underline their independence from the EEC in Brussels. In the 1970s, after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, the committee played a key role in the attempts to restore stable exchange rates within Europe, leading to the creation of the European Monetary System (EMS). In 1988–9, the BIS hosted the Delors Committee for the study of monetary union in Europe. The conclusions of the Delors Committee provided the basis of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which set the EU on the path of monetary union. Once this decision had been taken, the role of the BIS as host and agent of the EMS came to an end, and the committee of governors – soon recreated as the European Monetary Institute (EMI) and then European Central Bank (ECB) – moved from Basel to Frankfurt. The chapter ends with an assessment of the euro crisis of 2011–12.

This chapter is a reflection or insider’s view provided by a former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and long-standing member of the BIS Board of Directors, William Dudley. Based on his first-hand experience, and in reference to the crucial decade following the global financial crisis of 2007–9, his contribution reflects on the usefulness of the BIS as the global cooperative organisation of central banks. The BIS continues to play a crucial role as a forum for information exchange and discussions among central bankers and for informal networking. In addition, through its research, meetings and policy work it enables international consensus-building with a view to promoting global financial stability. The contribution also identifies some areas in which the BIS can and should further improve, in particular in terms of its transparency, diversity and inclusiveness. The efficient coordination of work and the ongoing cooperation between the BIS and the other key stakeholders in the international financial system, in particular the IMF and the World Bank, also figures high on the agenda.