Worldwide Payment Systems Reports

Color Books are country reference reports containing a systematic in-depth description of each country’s payment and securities settlement systems produced by a variety of international and/or national institutions and organizations. These reports include the “Red Books”, “Yellow Books”, “Blue Books”, “Green Books”, “Silver Books”, “White Books”, and “Purple Books" and are available online.

The World Bank, in cooperation with the Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), is involved directly in the preparation of the “Yellow Books” for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean as part of the Western Hemisphere Payments and Securities Settlement Forum.

Through the launching of the Commonwealth of Independent States Payment and Securities Settlement Initiative (CISPI), the Arab Payments and Securities Settlement Initiative (API), and more recently the South Asia Payments and Securities Settlement Initiative (SAPI), the World Bank is also involved directly in the preparation of “Silver Books”, “White Books" and “Purple Books”, respectively.

The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) publishes the "Red Book" on payment systems, which provides extensive information on the most important systems in the CPSS countries, and is is periodically revised (a statistical update of the data it contains is published each year).

In 1999, the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems published the "Green Book", which covers the countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The Green Book was produced by the SADC Payment System Project Team under the auspices of the SADC Committee of Central Bank Governors.

The European Central Bank publishes the "Blue Books", which provides a comprehensive description of the main payment and securities settlement systems in EU Member States (euro area countries and non-euro area countries).

In 2002, the Working Group on Payment and Settlement Systems of Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific Central Banks and Monetary Authorities (EMEAP) published the second edition of the EMEAP "Red Book", which covers payment systems in EMEAP economies.

In fulfillment of their commitment to transparency and accountability, many central banks around the world publish descriptive reports of the national payment and securities settlement systems. Below is a list of the central banks' publications available online (in development).