This was especially true where exchange controls were still being implemented and the currency was not fully convertible. Britain removed its exchange controls only as late as 1979. Free flows of currencies are a relatively new thing and their long absence reflects this wide held superstition of central banks. The latter continue, though, to intervene in the trading of currencies in the international and domestic markets usually to no avail and while losing their credibility in the process. Ever since the ignominious failure in implementing the infamous Louvre accord in 1985 currency intervention is considered to be a somewhat rusty relic of old ways of thinking.
Central banks are heavily enmeshed in the very fabric of the commercial banking system.
They perform certain indispensable services for the latter. In most countries, interbank payments pass through the central bank or through a clearing organ which is somehow linked or reports to the central bank. Central banks regulate banks, licence their owners, supervise their operations, keenly observes their liquidity. The central bank is the lender of last resort in cases of insolvency or illiquidity. The frequent claims of central banks all over the world that they were surprised by a banking crisis looks, therefore, dubious at best.