The SDR as a Means of Payment (Le DTS en tant que moyen de paiement) (El DEG como medio de pago)

Before the special drawing right (SDR) can make much progress toward becoming an important reserve asset, it needs to be more readily and widely used as a means of payment. The development of arrangements for settling SDR-denominated payment instructions between commercial banks is an important ingredient in that wider use. Clearing arrangements take many forms, and over time the market tends to evolve several interconnected arrangements simultaneously, such that payments are cleared in the most economical manner. Thus, there is the coexistence of correspondent clearing banks, citywide or regional clearinghouses, and central bank clearing accounts. For the SDR, it is possible if not likely that market participants will evolve a role for the Fund's official SDR in the clearing process similar to that played by central banks' reserve or clearing accounts in settling domestic currency payments. This paper explores one such possible arrangement; it would utilize movements of official SDRs between central banks as a means of making transfers of private SDRs between commercial banks in different countries. (In this context, official and private SDRs refer to SDRs allocated by the Fund and to SDR-denominated claims created by commercial banks, respectively.) The arrangement would require that central banks accept SDR-denominated clearing accounts from the commercial banks operating in their jurisdictions. These private SDR accounts of paying and receiving banks would be appropriately debited and credited with the counterpart in the Fund's official SDRs moving from one central bank to another on the books of the Fund's Special Drawing Rights Department. /// Pour que le droit de tirage spécial (DTS) puisse devenir un actif de réserve important, il faut que son utilisation comme moyen de paiement devienne plus facile et se généralise. La mise au point d'arrangements permettant de régler entre les banques commerciales les ordres de paiement libellés en DTS est une des conditions de cette utilisation élargie. Les systèmes de compensation se présentent sous différentes formes et, avec le temps, le marché tend à mettre en place plusieurs dispositifs qui sont simultanément interconnectés entre eux, afin que les paiements puissent être compensés de la façon la plus économique. C'est ainsi qu'on trouve à côté des banques de clearing, les chambres de compensation opérant à l'échelon d'une ville ou d'une région et les comptes de compensation de la banque centrale. Dans le ca