Together with the central banks of Colombia, Peru and the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg’s Central Bank was invited to join the BIS by its Board of Directors meeting on Sunday. The BIS is the world's oldest international financial organisation, having been founded in 1930. However, it was only recently that its core membership began expanding, with nine new members joining in 1996, a further four in 1999 and six more central banks becoming me members in 2003. The latest additions bring membership up to 60.

The BIS serves as a forum to promote discussion and policy analysis, a centre for economic and monetary research, a prime counterparty for central banks in their financial transactions and as an agent or trustee in connection with international financial operations.

Luxembourg Central Bank governor Yves Mersch told the Luxemburger Wort on Monday that the adhesion process had involved lengthy discussions lasting the better part of ten years. As Mersch explains, before the Luxembourg Central Bank existed, Belgium represented the Grand Duchy at the BIS. The Luxembourg bank will take up a minimum option of 3,000 shares in the BIS, which amounts to 0.5 percent of the total worth.

Mersch has said he wants to have a seat on the BIS’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, to which in principal only the ten biggest countries are admitted.