International financial institutions

15.4.1 Origins of IMF 
The need for an organisation like the IMF became evident during 
the great depression that ravaged the world economy in the 1930s. A 
widespread lack of confidence in paper money led to a spurt in the 
demand for gold and severe devaluation in the national currencies. 
The relation between money and the value of goods became confused 
as did the relation between the value of one national currency and 
another.
In the 1940s, Harry Dexter (US) and John Maynard Keynes (UK) 
put forward proposals for a system that would encourage the 
unrestricted conversion of one currency into another, establish a clear 
and unequivocal value for each currency and eliminate restrictions 
and practices such as competitive devaluations. The system required 
cooperation on a previously unattempted scale by all nations in 
establishing an. innovative monetary system and an international 
institution to monitor it. After much negotiations in the difficult war 
time conditions, the international community accepted the system and 
an organisation was formed to supervise it.
The IMF began operations in Washington DC in May 1946. It 
then had 39 members. The IMF’s membership now is 182.
15.4.2 Members and administration 
On joining the IMF, each member country contributes a certain 
sum of money called a ‘quota subscription’, as a sort of credit union 
deposit. Quotas serve various purposes.

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• 
They form a pool of money that the IMF can draw from to 
lend to members in times of financial difficulty.
• 
They form the basis of determining the Special Drawing 
Rights (SDR).
• 
They determine the voting power of the member.
15.4.3 Statutory purposes
The purposes of the International Monetary Fund are:
• 
To promote international monetary cooperation through a 
permanent institution that provides the machinery for 
consultation and collaboration on international monetary 
problems.
• 
To facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of 
international trade and to contribute, thereby, to the 
promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment 
and real income and to the development of the productive 
resources of all members as primary objectives of 
economic policy.
• 
To promote exchange stability, to maintain orderly 
exchange arrangements among members and to avoid 
competitive exchange depreciation.
• 
To assist in the establishment of a multilateral system of 
payments in respect of current transactions between 
members and in the elimination of foreign exchange 
restrictions which hamper the growth of world trade.
• 
To give confidence to members by making the general 
resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under 

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adequate safeguards, thus providing them with 
opportunity to correct maladjustment in their balance of 
payments without resorting to measures destructive to 
national or international prosperity.
• 
In accordance with the above, to shorten the duration and 
lessen the degree of disequilibrium in the international 
balances of payments of members.