Among major central banks that publish financial statements that include detailed operational expenses, the banks of Russia and South Africa have much larger budgets compared to the size of their economies than the other banks. In Russia’s case, the central bank spends a large amount on expenses related to foreign currency management and securities trading. However, as we showed in an earlier posts, the Russian central bank also has a lot more employees on a per capita basis than other major central banks. Taking the size of the economy into account, South Africa spends more than twice what New Zealand spends on its central bank and more than five times more than Canada, Australia or India.
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Note that the size of different central banks can be difficult to compare given differences in the services they provide and the areas that they regulate.
