Page 44 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

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The first SARB building: Erf 228 in Church Street, Pretoria. /SARB
The early years
On 9 May 1921, the SARB’s Board of Directors (Board) gathered in Room 39 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria for a preliminary meeting. The meeting place was the seat of power of the Union of South Africa, and remains so in contemporary South Africa.
The Bank did not have its own building. Acquiring and building offices became a common fixture during Board deliberations for more than a decade after that fateful meeting in May 1921.
At the meeting, the Board deliberated on a number of issues necessary to ensure the SARB would start its work, including a draft prospectus for the issue of capital stock, banknotes,
the appointment of officials and income tax. The early SARB had stockholders − this remains the case in present-day South Africa – although these are now referred to as shareholders. A historical account of the SARB’s early period reflects that: “Of the various functions customarily performed by central banks, three or four were carried out by the Reserve Bank virtually from the beginning. These functions were those of custodian of the cash reserves of other banking institutions, bank of rediscount, lender of last resort, bank of central clearance and settlement of interbank claims arising from the daily exchange of cheques, and custodian of the major part of the country’s gold and other foreign reserves. The function of issuing banknotes was assumed by the Bank some 91⁄2 months after it commenced operations.” (South African Reserve Bank, 1971, p 21).