Criticism of dollar dominance has arrived back at its ancestral home in Europe. In the 1960s, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, then French finance minister, first decried the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”: the ability of the US to finance large balance-of-payments deficits due to its currency’s dominant status in global finance.

Over the past decade, calls to reduce the dollar’s role have come mostly from Russia, China and Iran. The past two years, however, have seen German foreign minister Heiko Maas and Bank of England governor Mark Carney add their voices.

There are signs that central banks are voting with their feet. IMF data show that central banks’ holdings of dollar reserves have fallen slightly, despite the dollar’s high yield relative to other major currencies.