On March 10, 2003, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) abandoned the Swiss gold franc as the bank’s unit of account since 1930, and replaced it with the SDR. SDR stands for Special Drawing Rights and is a unit of currency originally created by the IMF.
According to James C. Baker, pro-BIS author of The Bank for International Settlements: Evolution and Evaluation,
“The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries. SDR’s are allocated to member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas. The SDR also serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international organizations. Its value is based on a basket of key international currencies.” 21
This “basket” currently consists of the euro, Japanese yen, British pound sterling, Chinese renminbi, and the U.S. dollar. The respective weights of the US dollar, euro, Chinese renminbi, Japanese yen, and British pound sterling are 41.73 percent, 30.93 percent, 10.92 percent, 8.33 percent, and 8.09 percent. These weights were used to determine the amounts of each of the five currencies included in the new SDR valuation basket that took effect on October 1, 2016. These currency amounts will remain fixed over the five-year SDR valuation period (see daily SDR valuation). Since currency amounts are fixed, the relative weight of currencies in the SDR basket can change during a valuation period, with weights rising (falling) for the currencies that appreciate (depreciate) relative to other currencies over time.(Source: imf.org)
The BIS abandonment of the 1930 gold Swiss franc removed all restraint from the creation of paper money in the world. In other words, gold backs no national currency, leaving the central banks a wide-open field to create money as they alone see fit. Remember, that almost all the central banks in the world are privately-held entities, with an exclusive franchise to arrange loans for their respective host countries. The BIS is the central bank for the central banks of the world.
