A Central bank is a bank for the government and a bank for banks. A central bank is an semi-independent autonomous government institution that conducts and controls monetary policy and interest rates, issues currencies, regulates and supervises banks and non bank financial institutes, manages exchange and gold reserves. It is a bank that does business with other banks and with the government and its functions also include acting as lender of last resort to commercial banks, and providing banking services to the government.
A central bank is also known as reserve bank or monetary authority.
According to Renowned economist Prof. M. H. DE Kock, "A central bank being generally recognized as a bank which constitutes the apex of the monetary and banking structure of its country and which performs as best as it can, in the national economic interest.”
According to R. S Sayers, “The central bank is the organ of government that under takes the major financial operations of the government and by its conduct of these operations and by other means influences the behavior of financial institutions so as to support the economic policy of the government.”
According to Prof. R.P. Kent, “It may be defined as an institution charged with the responsibility of managing the expansion and contraction of the volume of money in the interest of the general public welfare.”