In den 1920er Jahren war die Weltwirtschaft um ein Regime fester Wechselkurse herum neu aufgebaut worden, in dessen Rahmen viele Länder ihre Reserven nicht in Form von Gold (wie vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg üblich), sondern in Form von Devisen, insbesondere Pfund Sterling, hielten.
In the 1920’s, the world economy was reconstructed around a fixed exchange rate regime in which many countries held their reserves not in gold (as was the practice before the First World War) but in foreign exchange, especially in British pounds sterling.