经济学人常用术语 | Reserve currency

Reserve currency

A currency held by a central bank for use in emergencies. The central bank might need reserves to defend the currency of its home nation (by selling the foreign currency and buying the domestic one). Or it might lend its reserves to domestic banks should they need them. The dominant reserve currency is the American dollar (around 60% of global reserves at the time of writing) but the euro and Japanese yen are also used.