The Banco de Cabo Verde (BCV, Bank of Cape Verde) was the central bank before 1993, also acting as a commercial and development bank. This organization was supplemented by the Caixa Economica de Cabo Verde (CECV), a savings bank. Liberalization in September 1993 caused the division of the BCV into a central bank, which was privatized in 1999, and a commercial bank called the Commercial Bank of the Atlantic (BCA), which is still majority-state owned. In March 1993, the financial market was opened for private and foreign banks, as long as at least 50% of the workers were Cape Verdean nationals.
In 1999, four Portuguese banks opened offices in Cape Verde: Totta and Acores, Caixa Geral de Depositos, Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU), and Banco Mello. The fist totally private bank opened in 1999, the Banco Interatlantico.
The International Monetary Fund reports that in 2001, currency and demand deposits—an aggregate commonly known as M1—were equal to $170.0 million. In that same year, M2—an aggregate equal to M1 plus savings deposits, small time deposits, and money market mutual funds—was $363.4 million.
In early October 1996, the Ministry of Economic Coordination held a conference in Praia to consider opening a stock exchange. With the help of GARSEE, a World Bank institution, the Capital Markets Implementation Committee was created (Comissão Instaladora do Mercado de Capitáis). The committee established the first stock exchange in Insophone, Africa in March 1999, in Praia. The president of the Lisbon Stock Exchange, José Lemos, assisted GARSEE with the $500,000 project. Operations were not expected to begin until the end of 1999.