The Bank of the Republic () is the

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. It was initially established under the regeneration era in 1880. Its main modern functions, under the new

Colombian constitution The Political Constitution of Colombia of 1991 (), is the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia. It was promulgated in Constitutional Gazette number 114 on Sunday, July 7, 1991, and is also known as the Constitution of Human Rights. It re ...

were detailed by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

according t
Ley 31 de 1992
One of them is the issuance of the Colombian currency, the

peso The peso is the monetary unit of several Hispanophone, Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, as well as the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries of the Americas, the symbol com ...

. The bank is also active in promoting financial inclusion policy and is a leading member of th
Alliance for Financial Inclusion

History

There are at least three predecessors to the current bank. The first one was created in 1880, named the ''Banco Nacional'', and its functions included handling the state funds, issuing currency and making loans to the state. In 1894 the Congress closed the bank due to registered excesses in the issuance of currency and bonds. In 1905 the president Rafael Reyes created the ''Banco Central de Colombia'' but it was closed in 1910 by Reyes opponents. In 1923, after several years of financial crisis, President Pedro Nel Ospina requested an expert committee to study Colombian economic conditions. This committee, led by American economist

Edwin Walter Kemmerer Edwin Walter Kemmerer (June 29, 1875 – December 16, 1945) was an American economist, who became famous as an economic adviser to foreign governments in many countries (Philippines, Mexico, Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of ...

(referred to in an expression of the time as a money doctor) was called the ''Mission Kemmerer''. Kemmerer had already worked with Latin American governments: that of

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

in 1917 and of

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

in 1919. He helped the Colombian government create the Banco de la República and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic, and to structure the laws for this function using those already existing. After his work in Colombia, Kemmerer did the same for other Latin American governments, like

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

in 1925,

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

in 1926 and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

in 1931. The bank was officially chartered by the Law 25 of July 25, 1923, 5 days after the 113 anniversary of the

Independence of Colombia Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or Sovereign state, state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is ...

. With an initial capital of 10 million dollars in gold, half provided by the government and the rest by foreign and national commercial banks. Its role as a ''banker for banks'' includes: *Acting as a State Bank *Controlling the issue of the currency, the

Colombian peso The Colombian peso (currency sign, sign: $; ISO 4217, code: COP) is the currency of Colombia. Its ISO 4217 code is ''COP''. The official sign is $, with ''Col$''. also being used to distinguish it from other peso- and dollar-denominated currencie ...

*Receiving foreign credits and make loans to the Government and private banks *Managing the financial policy of the country *Regulating the

exchange rate In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of Hong Kong or supra-national as in the case of ...

between the peso and other currencies The Board of Directors was created by the same law, with ten members from private and public sectors of the economy with the power to enforce regulatory and monetary controls. The Board was also given the responsibility of establishing the discount rate and intervening to control

interest rates An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, ...

Buildings

The headquarters of the Banco de la República are located in

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

, in the historical center of the city (Calle 11 No. 4-21) and a few blocks away from the Gold Museum and the Luis Ángel Arango Library. Along with the ''Fiscalía General de la Nación de Colombia'' bunker, it is one of the most secure buildings in the country, with several security levels required to access different areas. The security is handled by private companies and the Colombian National Police, armed with Colombian-made

MAC-10 The Military Armament Corporation Model 10, officially abbreviated as "M10" or "M-10", and more commonly known as the MAC-10, is a compact, Blowback (arms), blowback operated machine pistol/submachine gun that was developed by Gordon Ingram in ...

sub-machine guns, among others. Most of the administrative areas of the bank are located above ground, in a twelve-story building. Below the street there is a heavily guarded area where money in different currencies is stored, and in a special vault the country's reserve of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

. Per Law 31 of 1992, the Bank of the Republic owns and manages both the Central de Efectivo in Bogotá and the Fábrica de Moneda in

Ibagué Ibagué () (referred to as San Bonifacio de Ibagué del Valle de las Lanzas during the New Kingdom of Granada, Spanish period) is the capital of Tolima Department, Tolima, one of the 32 departments that make up the Republic of Colombia. The city ...

which are respectively used to print banknotes and mint coins.

Governors

Cultural administration

Beside their primary roles in the Colombian economy, the Banco de la República runs an extensive culture-preservation and dissemination program. It runs two important institutions in Colombian culture: the Gold Museum in Bogotá and the Luis Ángel Arango Library, but in addition, it runs other five Gold Museums (Armenia,

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,280,522 residents estimate by National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE in 2023. The city span ...

, Cartagena, Pasto, and Santa Marta); the Leticia Ethnographic Museum; the Gómez Campuzano House in Bogotá; a 28-city Library Network; a Concert Hall in the Arango Library; and three museums in Bogotá, namely, the Museo Casa de Moneda, the Botero Museum, and the Miguel Urrutia Art Museum (MAMU). Also, the Bank has two scholarship programs for the best researchers in Economics (Lauchlin Currie Scholarship) and in Economic Law (Enrique Low Murtra Scholarship).

Banrepcultural

The online presence of all the museum sites, plus an encyclopaedia, plus an online library, is called "Banrepcultural", a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

for ''Red Cultural del Banco de la República en Colombia''. It calls itself "the oldest virtual library in Latin America", and uses the domain banrepcultural.org.

References

External links

Banco de la República official site
{{Authority control

Peso The peso is the monetary unit of several Hispanophone, Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, as well as the Philippines. Originating in the Spanish Empire, the word translates to "weight". In most countries of the Americas, the symbol com ...

Banks established in 1923 1923 establishments in Colombia