Established on 17 May 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial organisation owned by 60 member central banks, representing countries from around the world that together make up about 95% of world GDP.

Its head office is in Basel, Switzerland and it has two representative offices: in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and in Mexico City.

The mission of the BIS is to serve central banks in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, to foster international cooperation in those areas and to act as a bank for central banks.