page_title: Bank of North Dakota
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bank of North Dakota / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photos from October 6, Day 21 of w:Occupy Wall Street. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to keep Wall Street barricaded to the public.
context_page_description: The Bank of North Dakota is a state-owned, state-run financial institution based in Bismarck, North Dakota. It is the only government-owned general-service bank in the United States.
context_section_description: The Bank of North Dakota was established by legislative action in 1919 to promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. Though initially conceived by populists in the Non-Partisan League, or NPL, as a credit union-style institution to free the farmers of the state from predatory lenders, the bank's functions were largely blocked by out-of-state financial actors refusing to buy the bonds the bank issued to finance its lending, lending that would have provided competition to the commercial banks. The business-backed Independent Voters Association then pursued shutting down the bank politically. The recall of NPL Governor Lynn Frazier effectively ended the initial plan, with BND taking a more conservative central banking role in state finance.
  The current president and CEO is Eric Hardmeyer. The bank is overseen by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which is composed of the Governor, Attorney General, and the Agriculture Commissioner (formerly the Agriculture and Labor Commissioner) of North Dakota.
caption: A man in October 2011 advertising the bank at Occupy Wall Street.
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