The Khmer Rouge celebrated the revolution in 1975 by blowing up the Cambodian central bank (Clark 2006: 15), but the Khmer Rouge were exceptional. A national airline, a steel industry, and a central bank – preferably state-owned – were regarded as strategic assets by most developing economies after 1945. Central banks had opened in a few developing countries, including India, Argentina, and Colombia, before 1939. The 1940s witnessed central banking reforms in several developing countries, including Paraguay, as well as the creation of some new institutions (De Kock, M. H. 1974: 10–12). The age of decolonisation, between 1945 and 1970, was also an era of central bank proliferation. Most were built from scratch, but in some cases, including Indonesia and Taiwan, they were adapted from existing institutions. As Richard Sayers (1957: 110) remarked, in a speech at the National Bank of Egypt in 1956, the Brussels Conference in 1920 had called for the establishment of central banks everywhere.

The central bank often dominates the financial system in low-income nations, commanding assets that may rival those of the entire commercial banking system.