The UK. It had this huge navy, which amusingly is where its central bank comes from. An English Parliament wanted to buy the greatest navy the world had ever seen but that's very expensive, so their cunning scheme was, license some business people to run an exclusive Bank of England, secured by the word of the British government, the income from this funds a navy and the successors of that navy were still dominant into the 20th century.
The fact that the Bank of England was historically a private business is awkward when it comes to explaining to some modern country why it's not OK that their central bank is giving the leader's nephew $100M in unsecured loans, and this sort of discomfort is part of why it was bought by the British government and gradually ceased operating as a private bank in my lifetime. When I was younger I knew people whose mortgage was issued by the country's central bank. Not like celebrities or politicians or anything, just bureaucrats who got a good deal, sort of "mates rates" but for a house loan.
The fact that the Bank of England was historically a private business is awkward when it comes to explaining to some modern country why it's not OK that their central bank is giving the leader's nephew $100M in unsecured loans, and this sort of discomfort is part of why it was bought by the British government and gradually ceased operating as a private bank in my lifetime. When I was younger I knew people whose mortgage was issued by the country's central bank. Not like celebrities or politicians or anything, just bureaucrats who got a good deal, sort of "mates rates" but for a house loan.