Gold franc

The gold franc (currency code: XFO) was the unit of account for the Bank for International Settlements from 1930 until April 1, 2003.

[3] The gold franc was used in the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) as the currency in which the joint administration's postal service denominated its stamps, a natural choice as the Universal Postal Union Treaty (beginning in 1874 when the first treaty was agreed and reaffirmed at subsequent Congresses until at least that of 1939—see the various "Actes du Congress[4]...") denominated the agreed international postal rates in gold franc and gold centime leaving each member country and its dependencies to translate the amounts into their own currencies.

This added to the already confused situation in which the Australian dollar and the New Hebrides franc were used in normal trade (and in which even the pound sterling turned up in the columns of earlier joint administration budgetary documents).

[5]This initiative was examined by the Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxation, which rejected it at the June meeting.

The backers of the gold franc hoped that its institution would have made it easier for small savers to invest in gold by reducing the minimum investment and trading unit.