As part of the efforts to strengthen the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), on March 23, 1999 the Fund's Executive Board approved the incorporation of the data template on international reserves and foreign currency liquidity into the SDDS as a prescribed component with a transition period to run through March 31 of 2000. Following the end of the transition period, SDDS-subscribing countries began disseminating the template data on a monthly basis, with no more than a one-month lag. The first set of the template data for end-April 2000 was disseminated by the end of May 2000.

On March 29, 2000, the Fund's Executive Board approved both the establishment of a common database for the collection of template data disseminated by SDDS subscribing countries and the re-dissemination of these data through the Fund's external website. Countries participating in this endeavor do so on a voluntary basis. Participating countries provide the data to the Fund in a common template soon after they disseminate the data in their national media. 

Operational Guidelines designed to assist countries in preparation of the template data were first issued in October 1999 and published in 2001. An update of these Guidelines (pre-publication draft) was issued in January 2012.

The IRFCL data template establishes standards for the provision of information to the public on the amount and composition of official reserve assets, other foreign currency assets held by the monetary authorities and the central government, short-term foreign currency obligations, and related activities (such as financial derivatives positions and guarantees extended by the government for quasi-official and private sector borrowing) of the monetary authorities and the central government that can lead to drains on reserves and other foreign currency assets.