The gold franc (currency code: XFO) was the unit of account for the Bank for International Settlements from 1930 until April 1, 2003. It was replaced with the special drawing right. It was originally based on the Franc Germinal, and remained at the value the franc was pegged (0.290322 g fine gold) after the countries of the

Latin Monetary Union The Monetary Convention of 23 December 1865 was a unified system of coinage that provided a degree of monetary integration among several European countries, initially Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland, at a time when the circulation of bank ...

came off the gold standard. Zog frang ar coin front

Use in New Hebrides

The gold franc was used in the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides (now

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

) as the currency in which the joint administration's postal service denominated its stamps, a natural choice as the Universal Postal Union Treaty (beginning in 1874 when the first treaty was agreed and reaffirmed at subsequent Congresses until at least that of 1939—see the various "Actes du Congress...") denominated the agreed international postal rates in gold franc and gold centime leaving each member country and its dependencies to translate the amounts into their own currencies. This added to the already confused situation in which the Australian dollar and the New Hebrides franc were used in normal trade (and in which even the

pound sterling Sterling (symbol: £; currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of sterling, and the word '' pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency general ...

turned up in the columns of earlier joint administration budgetary documents).

Swiss Gold Franc Initiative

On March 9, 2011, a parliamentary initiative was introduced in the National Council of Switzerland to institute a gold franc as additional currency for

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

: This initiative was examined by th
Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxation
which rejected it at the June meeting. This gold franc would have been defined as 0.1

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a Physical unit, unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined in 1795 as "the absolute Mass versus weight, weight of a volume ...

of fine

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. The initiative would not have removed, replaced or pegged the existing Swiss franc, therefore both the gold franc and the Swiss franc would have coexisted side-by-side. Due to the fixed metallic content of the gold franc, its exchange rate with the Swiss franc would have gone up and down according to market supply and demand, like any other free- floating currency. The gold franc was intended to become a safe-haven currency, to divert international capital flows in times of

financial crises A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with Bank run#Systemic banki ...

away from the Swiss franc. The gold franc would have been completely independent from the gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank. It would have been minted only by Swiss commercial banks, under the supervision of the Swiss Confederation. The backers of the gold franc hoped that its institution would have made it easier for small savers to invest in gold by reducing the minimum investment and trading unit.Swiss Parliamen
Initiative 11.407
(in French).

References

External links

Gold Franc Association
- coordinating the efforts to introduce the gold franc as additional currency in Switzerland. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gold Franc Gold coins Proposed currencies