Bank of France
The Bank of France (French: Banque de France) is the French member of the Eurosystem. The bank doesn't translate its name to English and uses its French name Banque de France in all English communications. The bank was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800 as a private-sector corporation with unique public status. Charles de Gaulle's government nationalized the bank in 1945 after several governance changes in the meantime. The Bank of France was granted note-issuance monopoly in Paris in 1803 and in the entire country in 1848, issuing the French franc. It remained France's sole monetary authority until end-1998, when France adopted the euro as its currency.
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
|---|---|
| Established | 18 January 1800 |
| Ownership | 100% owned by French Government |
| Governor | François Villeroy de Galhau |
| Central bank of | France |
| Website | www.banque-france.fr |
The Bank of France long held high prestige as an anchor of financial stability, especially before the monetary turmoil that followed World War I. In 1907, Italian economist and statesman Luigi Luzzatti referred to the Bank of France as "the centre of the world's monetary power.": 21
The French framework for banking supervision was initiated by the Vichy Government in 1941 and entrusted from the start to a separate body under the aegis of the Bank of France, which in 2013 became the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (French acronym ACPR).