Ownership Government owned Website www.bancomoc.mz | Central bank of Mozambique | |
Headquarters 1695 Avenida 25 de Setembro, Maputo Established 17 May 1975 (1975-05-17) Currency Mozambican metical
MZN (ISO 4217) | ||
The Bank of Mozambique (Portuguese: Banco de Moçambique) is the central bank of Mozambique. The bank does not function as a commercial bank, and has the responsibility of governing the monetary policies of the country. The president of the Republic appoints the governor. The bank is situated in the capital, Maputo, and has two branches, one in Beira and one in Nampula. The Bank of Mozambique is active in developing financial inclusion policy and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.
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History
Most of Mozambique was a Portuguese overseas territory for several centuries. After independence in 1975, the newly created Government of Mozambique took over, without compensation, the Mozambican operations of Banco Nacional Ultramarino, a Portuguese colonial bank that had been acting as the bank of issue for the colony. This became the nucleus of Bank of Mozambique.
In 1977 the government also nationalized almost all banks in the country, including the Casa Bancária de Moçambique, and the Mozambican operations of Banco de Crédito, Comercial e Industrial and Banco Comercial de Angola, and merged them into Bank of Mozambique. At the same time it closed the operations of Banco de Fomento Nacional and Banco Pinto e Sotto Mayor. (The government permitted Banco Standard Totta de Moçambique to remain private.) It also created the Banco Popular de Desenvolvirmento by merging Crédito de Moçambique and Montepio de Moçambique.
In 1992, the Bank of Mozambique established a branch in Beira. A branch in Nampula followed in 1996.
In 1995, the government spun off the commercial banking operations of Bank of Mozambique into a newly created institution, the Banco Comercial de Moçambique (BCM). The government privatized BCM in 1997, and it merged with Banco Internacional de Moçambique (Millennium bim) in 2001.