At the end of 1961, seven European central banks (Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) and the US Federal Reserve pooled gold reserves to stabilise the gold price on the London market. Gold and foreign exchange experts from these central banks began meeting regularly at the BIS in 1962 to oversee the Gold Pool operations and discuss market prospects. By 1964, central banks from Canada, Japan and Sweden joined these meetings to address international gold and foreign exchange market developments.
These meetings marked the beginning of the BIS Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee, which evolved into the Markets Committee (MC) in 2002. While the Gold Pool ceased operations in 1968, the Committee continues to meet at the BIS, expanding its focus to financial market developments, structural trends, and their implications for market functioning and central bank operations.
In November 1961, to counter price fluctuations on the free gold market, seven European central banks and the US Federal Reserve create a "Gold Pool" to sell and buy gold on the London market with the aim of defending the official gold price. The Gold Pool is managed by the BIS and the Bank of England.
The Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee was established to monitor the global gold market and manage the Gold Pool.
Discussions in the Committee quickly widened beyond monitoring the Gold Pool to questions of managing the international monetary system through foreign exchange interventions. Meeting usually monthly, the Committee became a venue to share intervention strategies and central bankers’ views on the future of exchange markets in a timely manner.
Experts from the central banks of Canada, Japan and Sweden are invited to participate in the regular Gold and Foreign Exchange experts' meetings in Basel, turning it into a G10 committee.
The first Triennial Central Bank Survey of foreign exchange market activity was conducted in 1986 under the auspices of what would become the Markets Committee. Now conducted every three years, this survey has grown into the world's most comprehensive source of data on the size and structure of global FX and OTC derivatives markets, involving over 1,100 reporting dealers across 52 jurisdictions.
The Committee on Gold and Foreign Exchange was officially renamed the 'Markets Committee', reflecting the broadening of its mandate from gold and foreign exchange intervention to discussing financial market developments and cooperating closely in assessing current events as well as longer-term structural trends that may have implications for financial market functioning and central bank operations.
Under the oversight of the Markets Committee, the BIS launched an initiative to develop a single global code of conduct for the foreign exchange market. The Committee served as a key conduit between BIS Governors and the Foreign Exchange Committees in major financial centres. A first update of the code in progress was published in May 2016, leading to the finalised FX Global Code in May 2017.
The FX Global Code — a set of global principles of good practice in the wholesale foreign exchange market — was finalised and published. The Markets Committee played a central role in its development and continues to oversee its triennial review. The Code is designed to promote the integrity and effective functioning of the FX market without imposing binding legal obligations. The Committee receives annual updates from the Global Foreign Exchange Committee (GFXC) established to steward the Code.