About Our Gold Sight Account

July 27, 2000
Bank of Japan

The Bank of Japan has recently transferred its claims against the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) embodied in a "Gold Sight Account" to a "Gold Ear-marked Account" with the BIS.

Gold sight accounts are offered by the BIS to customer central banks. The Bank of Japan opened its sight account by paying US dollar cash and the BIS purchased gold using the cash. Sight account holders can withdraw the equivalent amount of gold anytime. On the Bank of Japan's balance sheet, the claims embodied in the Gold Sight Account had been booked classified as "foreign currency assets (foreign currency deposits)". After transferring to the Gold Ear-marked Account, however, the claims are now booked as "gold" together with the existing gold holdings by the Bank. It is for this reason that the Bank of Japan's gold balance has increased by 11,651,494 thousand yen as shown in the "Bank of Japan's Accounts" as of July 20, 2000.

As such, the transfer and associated change in our account are purely technical in nature and do not involve any new purchase of gold.

For information, please contact:

Planning and coordination division,
International Department Tel: 81-3-3277-1542