CaribSeek Books | Banking and Finance | Roots of our Future by Linda M. Rupert

IX - Banking & Finance[1]

"It is only in the last few years that the Netherlands Antilles have become a highly developed international financial centre, but the foundations for the prominent position which our country now occupies in this field were laid in the remote past."[2]

Local merchant houses issued paper notes when money was scarce (BNA).

In the second half of the twentieth century Willemstad earned an international reputation as an offshore financial center; in fact, along with Curaçao Liqueur, the offshore financial sector may well be the small island's greatest claim to world fame. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, when the exodus of the wealthy from Willemstad had long since ended, and before any serious urban renewal projects had begun, the only vibrancy in town, apart from the core commercial areas of Punda and Otrobanda, were the hundreds of so-called brass plate firms that discreetly housed the offshore offices of US and European companies. Willemstad, if

essentially in ruins physically, could nevertheless boast of being an international financial capital, and one with a sterling reputation at that.

But this image is a recent one. Not only is offshore a relatively new entry into Willemstad's economy, dating just from World War Two, for most of its colorful history the island had essentially no banking sector at all - and not even its own legal tender. Until the twentieth century local commercial houses, in addition to dominating trade and shipping, also conducted virtually all of the island's monetary transactions. For currency, Curaçao relied on a motley collection of coins representing over a dozen regional and international trading partners. Often money was scare. It was not until 1943 that the Netherlands Antilles finally had its own monetary unit.

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Curaçao Chamber of Commerce & Industry