Technical Notes and Manuals

Improving the Analytical Usefulness of the IMF’s COFER Data

ByGlen Kwende, Erin Nephew

November 26, 2025

More Formats on IMF eLibrary
Order a Print Copy

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Glen Kwende, and Erin Nephew. "Improving the Analytical Usefulness of the IMF’s COFER Data", Technical Notes and Manuals 2025, 014 (2025), accessed 12/30/2025, https://doi.org/10.5089/9798229004855.005

Export Citation

  • ProCite
  • RefWorks
  • Reference Manager
  • BibTex
  • Zotero
  • EndNote

Disclaimer: This Technical Guidance Note should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Note are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

This technical note presents a methodological change to the International Monetary Fund’s Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) dataset. Using a combination of stratified mean imputation and carry-forward imputation, IMF staff construct a new COFER timeseries which allocates 100 percent of global foreign exchange reserves across currencies, eliminating the "unallocated" portion of the dataset. This change improves the analytical usefulness of the COFER dataset by providing a more complete and consistent time series, while also strengthening the confidentiality of individual country data. Overall trends in currency composition remain broadly unchanged, but the allocation of previously unallocated reserves leads to modest adjustments in currency shares.

Subject: Asset and liability management, Central banks, Currencies, Foreign exchange, International liquidity, International reserves, Money, Reserve currencies

Keywords: analytical usefulness, COFER dataset, Currencies, Currency composition, Dollar, Global, IMF Library, IMF staff, International liquidity, International reserves, Reserve currencies, usefulness of the IMF's COFER Data, views ofthe IMF

You May Also Be Interested In...

The Managing Director's Global Policy Agenda, Fall 2025: Navigating a World In Transition

10/16/2025

Vietnam: Technical Assistance (TA) on Developing the Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS) at the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)

10/9/2025

A Stocktaking of The Current International Architecture for Resolving Sovereign Debt Involving Private Sector Creditors

10/7/2025

Nepal: Sixth Review Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nepal

10/6/2025

Credit where Credit is Due: Fiscal Consolidations, Sovereign Risk and Bank Credit

10/3/2025