Banque d'Afrique Occidentale

Banque d'Afrique Occidentale (also "B.A.0." or "BAO" or "Banque de l'AOF"): (French for Bank of West Africa) bank established in 1901 in Dakar, Sénégal, by French colonial authorities as the central bank of the colonies of French West Africa. [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901#Afrique]

Colonial History

Originally created by the expansion of the Banque du Sénégal (itself created by the French on 21 December 1853), the BAO was later expanded to include French Equatorial Africa to administer the common currency of French West Africa. While a private investment bank,the BAO was given government concessions to print currency, and its board always included colonial officials. It received special concessions and financial stabilisation from the government, and in essence became an arm of the French colonial administration. Between 1941 and 1958, the Institut d’Emission de l’Afrique Occidentale Francaise et du Togo was spun off the BAO to administer the Franc des colonies françaises d'Afrique (FCFA) (25 December, 1945) [http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/index.php3?action=showghoc&country_name=Franc_Communaute_Financiere_Africaine_(CFA)] .

Economic Role in Colonial Structure

Historians like Henri Brunschwig have pointed to the importance of the BOA in the assimilation of French West Africa into the French economic system. [Henri Brunschwig: Politique et Economie Dans l'Empire Francais d'Afrique Noire 1870-1914. The Journal of African History, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1970), pp. 401-417] Its founding in 1901 came after the extension of limited taxation of subjects, forced labor laws, and voting in the colonial possessions (notably the communes of Dakar and Saint-Louis, Senegal). The creation of and government support for the BOA was part of an attempt to inject investment into the French colonies. In 1880, almost all French economic interests in the area were in the form of family-run trading houses based in French port cities like Bordeaux and Marseilles. The creation of the BOA coincided with the consolidation of these trading houses into joint stock companies, the ending of formal government concessions to these houses, and the rise of a "de facto" monopoly of their successors. [Jean Suret-Canele. French Colonialism in Tropical Africa 1900-1945. Trans. Pica Press (1971) pp. 160-189] By the 1920s, business in the AOF was dominated by just three private joint stock companies: the Compagnie Française d'Afrique Occidentale, the Nouvelle Société Commerciale africaine, and the Société Commerciale de l'Ouest Africain (lagging slightly were the growing plantation and mining interests of the Unilever company). [ [http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/rodney-walter/how-europe/ch05.htm Walter Rodney: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications, London and Tanzanian Publishing House, Dar-Es-Salaam (1973).] ] . The BAO's board largely overlapped with the boards of these trading companies. When the initial privileges granted to the BOA expired in 1929, the French government granted it a further forty-year concession, with the only stipulation being that the government reserved the right to nominate the BOA's chair, and four members of its board.

While the Banque de France in Paris remained essentially a bank for banks, the BAO was a bank of issue "and" a commercial, deposit, and broking bank. In 1904 it was given the right to participate in the constitution of companies, as long as investment did not exceed a quarter of its reserves. [Jean Suret-Canele. French Colonialism in Tropical Africa 1900-1945. Trans. Pica Press (1971) pp. 166-168]

In consolidating banking institutions in semi-public hands, France hoped to inject greater inward capital investments into the AOF and created an opening for private banking interests to operate on the ground in the colonies. Most notably, the interwar years saw the founding of the Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (BNCI) which was owned by the French firm Credit Lyonnais, and in 1924, the Banque Comerciale de 1’Afrique (BCA).

This was, though, something of a failure. Capital extraction, not capital investment was the source of French wealth in West Africa. Taxes and import/export duties coming from the African colonies to the Metropole accounted for most of the capital movement in the AOF. [ Patrick Manning: Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa 1880-1985. Cambridge University Press (1988) pp.50-56] Tremendous legal concessions were made to the BOA, and while it dominated the banking sector, its capital remained minuscule in comparison to companies engaged in capital extraction from the AOF. The BOA held capital of 6 million francs before 1914, and that rose to 50 million in 1931, but declined thereafter. In 1940 all banks in the AOF had a total investment of just over 1.5 million francs. But forestry alone had an inward investment of almost 3.4 million francs that year. [Jean Suret-Canele. French Colonialism in Tropical Africa 1900-1945. Trans. Pica Press (1971) pp. 160-162]

The economic crisis of the early 1930s saw the collapse of the major private banks in the AOF, and the French authorised the BAO to save the BNCI by becoming its largest shareholder. At this point, the BOA regained its status as the sole investment bank in French West Africa.

ocial Role in Colonial Structure

Banking institutions, public and private, enabled colonial businesses to pull more of the West African economy into a moneyed economy and expand the replacement of traditional agriculture with large scale cash crops for export. [Martin Thomas: The French Empire Between the Wars: Imperialism, Politics and Society. Manchester University Press (2005) ISBN 0719065186] This was most evident in the tremendous growth of ground nut plantations.

Offices of the BAO were built in major towns throughout French West Africa, and their imposing edifices became symbols of French colonial power.

Independence

Following independence, the BAO was rechartered and adopted as the central bank for the francophone countries of West Africa. On 22 November 1962, the bank was renamed the Banque des Etats de l'Afrique Centrale (B.E.A.C.) and the CFA Franc was renamed the Franc de la Coopération Financière en Afrique Centrale (The F CFA).

Its last French President and Director General, Georges Gautier and Claude Panouillot, stepped down in 1962.

References

* (French) [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banque centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest]
* (French) [http://www.beac.int/histbeac.htm History on the BEAC Werbsite]
* (French) [http://www.banque-france.fr/fr/eurosys/zonefr/page1.htm French Central Bank: "Qu'est ce que la Zone franc?"]
* (French) [http://www.creationdentreprise.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=223&Itemid=27 "Institut Panafricain de Dévelopement des Entreprises: Brief history of the (B.E.A.C.) by Patrick MESTRALLET, Directeur Général de la Compagnie Bancaire de l’Afrique Occidentale (CBAO) du Sénégal"]
* (French) [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilan_%C3%A9conomique_de_la_colonisation_en_Afrique#Modalit.C3.A9s_financi.C3.A8res_de_la_colonisation Modalités financières de la colonisation from fr.wikipedia.org]
* Gary Wilder: The French Imperial Nation-state: Negritude and Colonial Humanism Between the Two World Wars. University of Chicago Press (2005) ISBN 0226897680

ee also

*West African CFA franc
*West African Economic and Monetary Union
*Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest
*French West Africa