| Bank Name In Local: | French: Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (BCEAO) |
| Headquarters: | Dakar, Senegal |
| Established: | 1959 |
| Executive Title: | Governor |
| Executive: | Jean-Claude Brou |
| Bank Of: | West African Economic and Monetary Union |
| Currency: | West African CFA franc |
| Currency Iso: | XOF |
| Reserves: | 9 820 million USD[1] |
| Website: | www.bceao.int |
| Preceded: | Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale (1901-1955) Institut d'Émission de l'Afrique Occidentale Française et du Togo (1955-1959) |
The Central Bank of West African States (French: Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, BCEAO) is a central bank serving the eight west African countries which share the common West African CFA franc currency and comprise the West African Economic and Monetary Union.
The BCEAO is active in developing financial inclusion policy and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.[2]
In 1955, the French government transferred the note-issuance privilege for its West African colonies, hitherto held by the Banque de l'Afrique Occidentale, to a newly created entity based in Paris, the French: Institut d’Emission de l’Afrique Occidentale Française et du Togo . In 1959, the institution's name was changed to BCEAO.[3] [4] [5]
The treaty establishing the West African Monetary Union (French: Union Monétaire Ouest-Africaine, UMOA) was signed on and gave BCEAO the exclusive right to issue currency as the common central bank for the, then, seven member countries:[4] [6] [7] Ivory Coast, Dahomey (later renamed Benin), Haute-Volta (later renamed Burkina Faso), Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. The statutes of the bank were subsequently approved in November 1962 and remained essentially unchanged until 1974, providing for dominant French influence over the BCEAO's governance.
On June 30, 1962, Mali left the group and adopted the Malian franc as national currency. On December 17, 1963, Togo officially joined the UMOA. On May 30, 1973, Mauritania withdrew and adopted the ouguiya as national currency. On February 17, 1984, Mali re-joined the UMOA.[4] Guinea-Bissau joined the group in 1997.
In 1975, the BCEAO was led for the first time by an African Governor, Ivorian Abdoulaye Fadiga. It remained headquartered in Paris until mid-1978, when its head office was relocated to Dakar. The Dakar headquarters was formally inaugurated on .
The BCEAO's statutes were amended in 2010 to grant it greater independence from member states.
See main article: Banking Commission of the West African Monetary Union.
In 1989, BCEAO Governor Alassane Ouattara promoted the creation of a single banking supervisory authority for the entire West African Monetary Union. The Banking Commission of the West African Monetary Union was subsequently established by an international convention signed in Ouagadougou on [8]
In 2012, the West African Monetary Union's Council of Ministers authorized the BCEAO to create a regional agency to support the issuance and management of their public securities (French: titres). The agency was formally created on under the name UMOA-Titres. Since then, UMOA-Titres has coordinated most of the member states' government debt issuance.[9]
The BCEAO has a main branch, known as agency, in the largest city of each of the member states, whose building typically dominates the local skyline.[10] In Dakar, the BCEAO's headquarters is in a high-rise building separate from the agency for Senegal. In addition, the BCEAO has branches in Parakou (Benin), Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso), Abengourou, Bouaké, Daloa, Korhogo, Man and San-Pédro (Côte d'Ivoire), Mopti and Sikasso (Mali), Maradi and Zinder (Niger), Kaolack and Ziguinchor (Senegal), and Kara (Togo).[11] In Paris, the BCEAO maintains a representative office in its former headquarters building at 29, rue du Colisée.
Robert Julienne, a French national, was chief executive (French: directeur général) of the French: Institut d’émission, then of the BCEAO from 1955 to 1974,[12] after which the bank's head held the title of Governor.
Benin
Burkina Faso
Mali
Niger
Senegal
Togo