Central bank of the States of West Africa

The Central bank of the States of West Africa or BCEAO is an international public corporation gathering eight country of monetarist and West Africa members of the economic Union West African:

Burkina Faso
(since the May 2nd 1997)
Mali
Niger
Togo

Created into 1962 under the terms of the Treaty of the West African monetary Union, it is in load, dialog with the national central banks of the Member States:

the monetary emission strikes CFA franc BCEAO (code monetary: XOF), which has legal tender in the Member States of UEMOA;
the application of the common monetary policy;
the fixing of interest rates;
the management and of the control of monetary reserves, and the foreign debt;
the banking legislation and financial of the Member States of the Union;
assistance with the Member States of the Union in their relationships to the international financial institutions and monetarists.

Thanks to a monetary agreement with France, CFA franc BCEAO was convertible with the Franc French until in at the end of 1999, by a fixed rate (revisable) guaranteed by the deposit by the BCEAO of a reserve fund to the Banque de France, consisted the contributions of the national central banks (BCN) of each Member State of CEMAC.

In at the end of 1999, the Euro having replaced the French franc, the monetary agreement with France was maintained (after agreement of the ECB), but was redefined by a fixed rate with the Euro still guaranteed (under certain conditions) by the Banque de France, in exchange of the maintenance of the reserve fund.

However, the BCEAO remains free to compose of the additional reserve funds (out of metal or currencies) with other central banks in order to facilitate the international business and to have additional monetary reserves in other currencies that the Euro, or to put an end to the convertibility of CFA franc BCEAO with the Euro so necessary.

The head office of the BCEAO is located at Dakar (Senegal). Its governor is, since 1994, Charles Konan Banny. He occupied this station of 1990 to 1993 on a purely temporary basis, following the resignation of Alassane Dramane Ouattara, become Prime Minister. According to a tacit rule which want that the post of governor is occupied by the country which with the greatest financial mass, Banny should be replaced by another of the Ivory Coast.

External bond

Site of the BCEAO

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