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The Central
Bank of Chile (Spanish: Banco Central de Chile) is the central bank of
Chile. It was originally created in 1925 and is incorporated into the
current Chilean Constitution as an autonomous institution of constitutional
rank. The objectives of the Central Bank of Chile were essentially of a
monetary nature. In the first place, the Bank was to watch over the
stability of the value of Chile’s currency under a fully convertible gold
standard regime and, in the second place, it was to regulate currency
according to the needs of the monetary market. |
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The basic
constitutional law assigned the Central Bank a monopoly on issuing bank
notes. The law required that the Central Bank permanently hold a gold
reserve equivalent to no less than 50% of total emission. If it were to fall
below this limit, it would have to pay a fine to the state proportional to
the deficit.
To meet its objectives, the Central Bank has a series of
operating functions and attributes regarding the following areas: |
it issue of
bank notes and coins, the regulation of the amount of money in circulation
and credit;
It keeps
and manages the foreign reserve of the Republic of Chile;
It compiles, adopts and implements the foreign exchange regime and the
exchange rate policy;
It licenses or revokes a license on exercising banking activity and
supervises the banking activity to ensure the banking system stability;
It acts as banker, advisor to, and as fiscal agent, of the government of
the Republic of Chile;
It serves as Bank of banks;
and
It prompts the normal functioning of payment systems.
To meet its
objectives, the Central Bank has a series of operating functions and
attributes regarding the following areas: the issue of bank notes and coins,
the regulation of the amount of money in circulation and credit, the
regulation of the financial system and the capital market, faculties to
preserve financial system stability, functions as part of its role as fiscal
agent, attributes in terms of international questions, attributes regarding
foreign currency operations and statistical functions.
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