History
Following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s, the Cuban banking sector came under the control of the new regime. The new authorities famously appointed Che Guevara as President of the National Bank of Cuba (Spanish: Banco Nacional de Cuba) in 1959. Guevara often retold the apocryphal story of how he gained the job at the bank; Fidel Castro had asked if there were an economista in the room and he had put his hand up - much to Castro's surprise. Guevara had mistakenly thought that Castro had asked for a comunista.
Guevara's appointment seemed somewhat ironic, as he often condemned money, favored its abolition, and showed his disdain by signing Cuban banknotes with his nickname, "Che."
The 1990s saw the restructuring of the Cuban banking system, with new commercial banks created, and a new central bank, "Banco Central de Cuba" set up. The architect of this restructuring, Francisco Soberón, became the first president of the new central bank.
Read more about this topic: Banking In Cuba
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
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“As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.”
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“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)