The official site of Italy's central bank

Foreign exchange operations

Within the Eurosystem, the Bank of Italy may be called upon to undertake market interventions together with the other National Central Banks and the European Central Bank.

The Bank of Italy may also be asked to intervene in connection with the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II), which sets out the main lines of cooperation in exchange rate policies between the ECB and the NCBs in EU member states that have not adopted the Euro.

Foreign exchange operations may also be used to alter the composition of the Bank’s foreign currency reserves in order to achieve the best balance between risk and return.

The Bank of Italy may be required to buy and sell foreign currency with market counterparties in connection with the servicing of the country’s foreign currency debt, in order to balance inflows and outflows without changing the amount or composition of foreign currency reserves.

The Bank analyses the performance of the main currencies daily, using information provided by the main news agencies and market operators. It takes part in the daily videoconference between the major central banks to decide the indicative exchange rates between the Euro and 34 currencies. The ECB uses these exchange rates to calculate the effective Euro exchange rate. As required by law, the Bank of Italy communicates these rates to the market and notifies them to the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, which publishes them in the official journal, Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana.

Starting from the 2nd of January 2008, this section also hosts an historical database (formerly managed by the UIC) containing a wide set of information related to currencies and exchange rates.