US dollar’s share of global reserves at its lowest level in 3 decades

The dollar’s ​​share of global foreign exchange reserves reached its lowest level in the past three decades at the end of the third quarter of the year.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the US currency’s share of international reserves fell in the July-September period for the second consecutive quarter – by 0.85 percentage points, and over the year by 1.8 percentage points.

At the end of the quarter, the index fell to 57.4%, the lowest since 1995 (the IMF does not provide statistics for earlier periods).

The only other currency to show a decline in the third quarter was the Swiss franc, whose share fell from 0.2% in April-June to its lowest level of 0.17% since the end of 2021.

The main beneficiary of the decline in the share of the dollar and the franc is the euro: in the third quarter, its share rose to 20.02% from 19.75% in April-June. Non-reserve currencies added another 0.23 percentage points in the last quarter. But it still only accounts for 4.46% of total reserves. The yen’s share rose by 0.22 percentage points during the quarter to 5.82%, the highest since the end of March 2021.

The downward trend in the Chinese yuan has been curbed and reversed: after central banks reduced its use for storing reserves for nine consecutive quarters, the Chinese currency’s share rose in July-September. It rose to just 2.17% from 2.14% in the previous quarter.

The share of other reserve currencies also rose slightly – the British pound and the Australian dollar by 0.03 percentage points, and the Canadian dollar by 0.06 percentage points.