[1] Private banks in Nicaragua were by law abolished in the 1980s and cooperatives were considered too politicized and dependent on subsidies.
[citation needed] In 1985, a new degree loosened state control of the banking system by allowing the establishment of privately owned local exchange houses.
[1] In 1991 a legislation allowed the establishment of the first private banks in the country,[3] however only large industries and agribusiness producers of non-traditional crops for export qualified for credit thus leaving small business owners and producers of consumption crops with no access to loans or banking services.
[1] The Mercantile Bank program was expected to make loans available to small and medium-sized private-sector enterprises and to finance investments to bolster fixed assets and create permanent working capital.
[1] Restructuring of the National Financial System (Sistema Financiero Nacional - SFN) was one of the key elements of the government's economic reform program.
[1] International operations, which had been managed exclusively by the Central Bank since 1984, were transferred to the BND and Banic.