The major international financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, were created at the Bretton Woods Conference of July 1944 to contribute to the post-war reconstruction.

Initially made up of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the World Bank Group gradually extended to the International Finance Corporation (IFC, 1956), the International Development Association (IDA, 1960), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID, 1966) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA, 1988).

IFIs also include multilateral development banks: Inter-American Development Bank Group (crated in 1959), African Development Bank (1963), Asian Development Bank (1966), and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1990).

^{Updated on 16.11.10}