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List of
Central Banks Worldwide
The Argentine
Central Bank is a National State self-governed institution,
whose primary and fundamental mission is to preserve the
value of the Argentine currency.
The Central
Bank of Argentina (Spanish: Banco Central de la República
Argentina, BCRA) is the central bank of Argentina
Established by six Acts of Congress enacted on May 28, 1935,
the bank replaced Argentina's Currency board, which had been
in operation since 1890. Its first President was Ernesto
Bosch, who served in that capacity from 1935 to 1945.
The Central Bank's headquarters on San Martín Street (in the
heart of Buenos Aires' old financial district, known locally
as the city), was originally designed in 1872 by architects
Henry Hunt and Hans Schroeder. Completed in 1876, the
Italian Renaissance-inspired building initially housed the
Mortgage Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires. The Central
Bank's offices were transferred to an adjacent address upon
its establishment, and were expanded to their present size
by the purchase of the Mortgage Bank building in 1940, as
well as by the construction of a twin building behind it.
The Central Bank was a private entity during its first
decade, and British Empire interests held a majority stake.
Pursuant to the Roca–Runciman Treaty of 1933, Central Bank
reserves accrued from Argentine trade surpluses with the
United Kingdom were deposited in escrow at the Bank of
England, and this clause, which had led to over US$1 billion
in inaccessible reserves (more than half the total) by 1945,
prompted the Central Bank's nationalization by order of Juan
Perón in December.[2]
Normally subordinate to the Economy Ministry in matters of
policy, the Central Bank took a more prominent role during
the Latin American debt crisis when, in April 1980, it
enacted Circular 1050. This measure, enacted to shield the
financial sector from the cost of receiving payments in
suddenly devalued pesos, bankrupted thousands of homeowners
and businesses by indexing mortgages to the value of the US
dollar locally, which rose around fifteenfold by July 1982,
when Central Bank President Domingo Cavallo rescinded the
policy.[2][3] During the years of Cavallo's Convertibility
Law, which established a 1:1 fixed exchange rate between the
Argentine peso and the United States dollar in March 1991,
the BCRA was mainly in charge of keeping foreign currency
reserves in synch with the monetary base.
Since the repeal of the Convertibility Law in January 2002,
the devaluation and depreciation of the peso and the end of
the economic crisis, its role has been the accumulation of
reserves in order to gain a measure of control of the
exchange rate. The BCRA buys dollars from the market to
neutralize the large surplus of the foreign trade balance
and keep the official exchange rate at the level desired by
the government, currently around 3.80 pesos per dollar,
considered internationally competitive for exports and
useful to encourage import substitution (see Foreign trade
of Argentina).
Near the end of 2005, President Néstor Kirchner vowed to pay
the Argentine public debt with the International Monetary
Fund in a single, anticipated disbursement. The payment was
effected on 3 January 2006, employing about US$ 9.5 billion
from the BCRA's reserves. This decreased the amount of
reserves by one third, but did not cause adverse montary
effects, save from an increased reliance on the local bond
market, which requires somewhat higher interest rates.
The Central Bank's Reconquista Street entrance, built in
1940 in imitation of its older, opposite entrance.The BCRA
continues to intervene in the exchange market, usually
buying dollars, though occasionally selling small amounts
(for example, reacting to rumours of a possible increase of
the Federal Reserve's reference rate, which caused a minor
spike in the dollar's value). Its reserves reached more than
US$ 28 billion in September 2006, recovering the levels
prior to the IMF payment, and rose to US$ 32 billion at the
close of the year. The exchange rate was maintained
relatively undervalued, prompted by the BCRA's market
intervention as a buyer.[4][5]
In its October 2006 issue, the influential Global Finance
magazine gave Martín Redrado, President of the Central Bank,
a D grade in its survey of global central bankers. The
magazine held that Redrado "missed the opportunity to act to
curb inflation when the economy was expanding at its fastest
... with inflation expected to reach 12% in 2006, up from
7.7% in 2005 and 4.4% in 2004." Inflation for 2006
eventually amounted to 9.8%, helped by price controls,
though the public's perception of it was higher due to the
composition of the sample used to measure the index. The
BCRA obtained exceptionally high returns on investment
funded by its reserves, for a total of US$ 1.4 billion USD
(a yearly rate of 5.7%) in 2006.
Since early 2008, the Central Bank of Argentina has held
foreign exchange reserves of between US$47 and US$50
billion.[8] The official exchange rate, which had oscillated
around 3 Argentine pesos per US dollar since early 2003, was
adversely impacted by the international, 2008 financial
crisis, and weakened to nearly 4 pesos per dollar by the
first half of 2010.
Fallout from the 2008 financial crisis later forced the
left-wing Argentine government of President Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner to seek domestic financing for growing
public spending, as well as for foreign debt service
obligations. The president ordered a US$6.7 billion account
opened at the Central Bank for the latter purpose in
December 2009, implying the use of the Central Bank's
foreign exchange reserves, and drawing direct opposition
from Redrado. He was dismissed by presidential decree on
January 7, 2010, prior to which Economy Minister Amado
Boudou had announced that Mario Blejer (who had expressed
support for the measure) would be appointed in his stead.[9]
Following an impasse, Redrado was ultimately replaced by
Mercedes Marcó del Pont, President of the Bank of the
Argentine Nation, on February 3.[10]
Redrado's removal triggered a vocal rebuke from opposition
figures in Congress, who, citing the need to preserve the
Central Bank's nominal autarky, expressed doubts as to the
decree's legality.[11] A court injunction blocked Kirchner's
planned use of reserves for the retirement of high-interest
bonds, a move that could have provided numerous vulture
funds (holdouts from the 2005 debt restructuring who had
resorted to the courts in a bid for higher returns on their
defaulted bonds) a legal argument against the central bank's
autarky, and thus make judgement liens against the central
bank's overseas accounts possible
List of
Offshore Bank
Here are some of the common famous Offshore Zones :
Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Cyprus, Bahamas,
Cayman Islands, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominica, British
Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cyprus, Mauritius, Singapore,
Hong Kong, and Cook Islands. These places are notoriously
called ' Tax havens of the World ' because they offer
significant tax benefits like no income taxes, no estate
taxes, no capital gains, excellent interest rates for
investments, direct access to stock markets. Switzerland is
the undisputed leader in offshore.
Nevertheless, privacy is a biggest attraction in these 'Tax
Free Zones' of the world.
We make offshore bank account setup easy:
Just a copy of your passport "legalized" or ID required.
Bank of
Albania - Bank of Algeria -
Bank of Argentina -
Bank of Armenia -
Bank of Aruba -
Bank of Australia -
Bank of Austrian -
Bank of Azerbaijan -
Bank of Bahamas -
Bank of Bahrain -
Bank of Bangladesh -
Bank of Barbados -
Bank of Belarus -
Bank of Belgium -
Bank of Belize -
Bank of Bermuda -
Bank of Bhutan -
Bank of Benin -
Bank of Bolivia -
Bank of Bosnia -
Bank of Botswana -
Bank of Brazil -
Bank of Bulgaria -
Bank of Burkina Faso -
Bank of Cameroon -
Bank of Canada -
Bank of Cayman Islands -
Bank of Central
African Republic - Bank of Chad -
Bank of Chile -
Bank of China -
Bank of Colombia -
Bank of Congo
-Bank of Costa Rica -
Bank of Côte d'Ivoire -
Bank of Croatia -
Bank of Cuba -
Bank of Cyprus -
Bank of Czech Republic -
Denmark -
Bank of Dominican Republic -
East
Caribbean area - Ecuador -
Egypt -
El Salvador -
Equatorial
Guinea - Estonia -
Ethiopia -
European Union -
Fiji -
Finland -
France -
Gabon -
Georgia -
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