An exchange rate is "floating" when supply and demand or speculation sets exchange rates (conversion units).
But some analysts, like Ms. Mills, saw an opening when President Bush said recently that markets should set exchange rates.
The money-transfer companies do not disclose the spreads they benefit from when they set exchange rates.
Last month, at the G7 meeting in Dubai, John Snow, his treasury secretary, persuaded the other six members to sign a communiqué insisting that markets should set exchange rates.
The EU accounts for between a third and a fifth of the world economy, depending on how you set exchange rates.
Mr. Siluanov said in his opening remarks that a statement endorsing market mechanisms to set exchange rates would "find a place in the communiqué." That reiterated the position of a statement issued by the Group of 7 earlier this week.
The answer took a couple of decades (and recessions) to hammer out.Once it was accepted that the markets could set exchange rates, there was no real need for capital controls.
"There are countries within the G20 that actually set exchange rate targets.
Regulators in the UK, US and Switzerland are looking into whether banks colluded to set exchange rates.
Suspicions of exchange rate manipulation centre on a one-minute window of trading at 16:00 every day that is used to set exchange rates.
