This book analyse the driving forces of the creation and development of oficial banks in Brazil. In a historical perspective, it shows how the government of a young republic in the late XIXth and early XXth centuries sponsored the creation of new private financial institutions that later ended up in its own hands. In an enviroment where government warranties were necessary to attract private capital to develop long term credit, the "Encilhamento", the use of foreing loans to fund domestic long term loans and recurrent reversals of foreign capital flows compounded the scenario that caused a gradual and long lasting government intervention in the banking sector.