In 1881, an office of the Bank of Java was opened in Amsterdam. Later followed the opening of an office in New York. By 1930 the bank owned sixteen office branches in the Dutch East Indies: Bandung, Cirebon, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Surabaya, Malang, Kediri, Banda Aceh, Medan, Padang, Palembang, Banjarmasin, Pontianak, Makassar, and Manado.
The Bank of Java was operated as a private bank and individuals as well as industries etc. could get help in the bank's offices.[3]
Bank Indonesia was founded on 1 July 1953 from the nationalisation of De Javasche Bank, three years after the recognition of Indonesia's independence by Netherlands.
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For the next 15 years, Bank Indonesia carried on commercial activities as well as acting as the nation's national bank and is in charge in issuing Indonesian rupiah currency. This came to an end with the Act No. 13 of 1968 on the Central Bank, transforming Bank Indonesia as a central bank.
The act was subsequently replaced by Act No. 23 of 1999, giving the bank independence from governmental control. Thereafter, the bank reported to the parliament (DPR) instead of the President, and the bank's governor was no longer a member of the cabinet.
The bank is led by the board of governors, comprising the governor, a senior deputy governor and at between four and seven deputy governors.
The governor and deputy governors serve a five-year term, and are eligible for re-election for a maximum of three terms.[5] The governor and senior deputy governor are nominated and appointed by the president, with approval from the DPR. Deputy governors are nominated by the governor and appointed by the president, with approval of the DPR. The president has no power to dismiss a member of the board, except when a board member voluntarily resigns, is permanently disabled, or is proven guilty of criminal offence. The senior deputy governor acts as governor in the case of the latter's office vacancy.
The Board of Governors Meeting is the bank's highest decision-making forum. It is held at least once a month to decide on general policy on monetary affairs, and at least once a week to evaluate policy implementation or to decide on other strategic and principle policy.[citation needed]
The Bank is active in promoting financial inclusion policy and is a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. It hosted AFI's second annual Global Policy Forum (GPF) in Bali, Indonesia in 2010.[6] On 14 May 2012 Bank Indonesia announced it would be making specific commitments to financial inclusion under the Maya Declaration.[citation needed]
By 30 December 2013, the bank's microprudential supervision functions will be transferred to Financial Services Authority (OJK). In the future, the bank will maintain Indonesian financial system and monetary stability through mixture of monetary and macroprudential instruments and policies. The Financial Services Authority institutive law (law n° 21 of 2011 enacted on 31 December 2012) followed the US$710 million baylout of Bank Century[7] and the receivership 21 other national private banks.[citation needed]
Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support is an Indonesian government policy that was formulated with Bank Indonesia in the crisis period and executed by Bank Indonesia to rescue the monetary and banking system as well as the economy as a whole. It was partly based on the instruction and command of the President in the limited meeting of economic, finance, and development supervision and production and distribution on 3 September 1997.
This policy was provided under various emergency lending schemes (Fasilitas Diskonto I/Fasdis I, Fasdis II, Fasilitas SBPU, Fasilitas SBPUK, Fasilitas Diskonto Baru and Dana Talangan).
BI operates 37 offices across Indonesia, and five representative offices in New York City, London, Tokyo, Singapore and Beijing. In addition, Bank Indonesia also operates several museums housed in the former De Javasche Bank office buildings, such as Jakarta (located in the former De Javasche Bank head office building in old Jakarta), Surabaya, and Padang.
^Brief useful notes on the history of Bank Indonesia for various periods since 1953 are on the Bank Indonesia website at "History of Bank Indonesia Institution". See also Cribb, Robert & Kahin, Audrey (2004). Historical Dictionary of Indonesia. Historical dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. pp. 45–46. ISBN978-0-8108-4935-8.