Paper money in Ecuador was born of private banking, not of a state issuer. On 22 March 1884 a monetary law replaced the peso with the sucre, named for Antonio José de Sucre. For more than sixty years houses in Guayaquil and Quito — the Banco del Ecuador (1868), the Comercial y Agrícola, the Banco de Quito — paid for trade with plates engraved in New York and London, against a convertibility that the crises of 1914 and the 1920s put in doubt.
The July Revolution of 1925 and the Kemmerer Mission of 1926–1927 closed that chapter. Isidro Ayora signed the Organic Law of the Central Bank on 4 March 1927; the bank opened on 10 August. The gold standard was set at five sucres to the dollar. From then on portraits of national figures occupied the face of Thomas De La Rue series: Sucre, Bolívar, Rocafuerte, Alfaro.
On 9 January 2000, after the 1999 banking crisis, the dollar replaced the sucre at 25,000 to 1. Note exchange ended in June 2001. This case investigates that trajectory. Individual note pages will be published as they are documented, as in the Philippines case.
Notes in the collection
Individual note pages will be published as they are documented, as in the Philippines case.
Investigation
1884–1926
The sucre
The 1884 monetary law replaced the peso with a unit named for Antonio José de Sucre.
Ecuador left Gran Colombia in 1830 and for decades trade still ran on pesos, reales, and foreign coin. On 22 March 1884 a monetary law created the sucre, of 100 centavos, named for the marshal who sealed Andean independence at Pichincha and Ayacucho. The bimetallic standard soon tilted toward gold; the exchange rate was, in practice, anchored to the dollar. Paper of that era did not come from a state bank: private houses in Guayaquil and Quito issued it, with uneven convertibility and plates engraved abroad. The currency’s name outlived those houses; the monopoly of issue did not arrive until 1927.
1860–1927
Private banks of issue
Guayaquil and Quito paid for trade with private-house notes until the Central Fund took in the gold behind those issues.
The Banco del Ecuador, founded in Guayaquil in 1868, was the longest-lived private issuer. The Banco de Quito, Banco de la Unión, and Banco Comercial y Agrícola followed; the Bank Note Museum records their plates, often from the American Bank Note Company. Each house promised metallic convertibility; the crises of 1914 and the 1920s showed how fragile that promise was. After the July Revolution of 1925, Isidro Ayora’s government created the Central Issuance and Amortization Fund on 26 June 1926 to recognize notes in circulation. On 18 October 1926 it ordered authorized banks to deliver gold and silver to that fund — about 10.6 million sucres — a step toward the central bank.
1927–1999
Banco Central del Ecuador
The Kemmerer Mission, the Organic Law of 1927, and seventy years of centralized sucre notes.
Edwin W. Kemmerer — the same adviser Colombia had hired in 1923 — landed at Salinas on 17 October 1926. On 11 February 1927 he delivered the draft Organic Law of the Central Bank; Isidro Ayora signed it on 4 March (Supreme Decree 253). The deed of incorporation is dated 9 July; the bank opened on 10 August 1927, the foundation date the BCE itself uses. The Monetary Law of 19 March set the gold standard at five sucres to the dollar. From then on portraits of national figures — Sucre, Bolívar, Rocafuerte, Alfaro — occupied the face of circulating series, engraved chiefly by Thomas De La Rue. Note pages from that period will be published as pieces are documented.
from 2000
Dollarization
On 9 January 2000 the dollar replaced the sucre at 25,000 to 1; note exchange ended in June 2001.
The 1999 banking crisis, inflation, and the collapse of the exchange rate left the sucre without an anchor. On 9 January 2000 the executive announced dollarization: the United States dollar became store of value, unit of account, and means of payment. The BCE could no longer issue paper, except fractional coin, and had to exchange outstanding sucres for dollars from its International Monetary Reserve at a fixed 25,000 sucres to 1 dollar. That exchange ended in June 2001. Sucre notes ceased to be legal tender; they remain the object of this case. The bank still manages the international reserve and fractional coinage in U.S. cents.
Sources
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Central Bank of Ecuador — History
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Kemmerer Mission, Organic Law of 4 March 1927, opening on 10 August, and dollarization on 9 January 2000.
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Central Bank of Ecuador — History (English)
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1926 Central Fund, gold and silver delivery on 18 October, and sucre exchange through June 2001.
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Wikipedia — Ecuadorian sucre
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Monetary law of 1884; rate of 25,000 sucres to the dollar in 2000.
- Bank Note Museum — Ecuador (private banks and the Central Bank) (opens in a new tab)