Cash register

Its full name was the "Cash Register of Foreign Operations" and, together with information from the Directorate General of Customs, it was the main source of data for the preparation of Spain’s Balance of Payments, managed by the Ministry of Commerce until 1992.

This register was maintained by the Spanish Foreign Exchange Institute (IEME) until Decree 2799/1969, of November 14, ordered the transfer of operational functions to the Banco de España (later, Decree-Law 6/1973, of July 17, declared the IEME extinct and distributed the remaining competencies between the Bank of Spain and other institutions). From that moment on, the Bank of Spain took over this register.

The cash register began to be published with issue 2/1963 of the Banco de España’s Statistical Bulletin. Its name changed over time in the bulletin:

• Foreign transactions
• IEME cash register
• Foreign operations registered by the IEME
• Cash register of foreign operations
• Balance of payments (Cash register)

With the publication of Royal Decree 1816/1991, the total liberalization of foreign transactions took place in February 1992. This meant that the cash register ceased to have relevant informational content and stopped being published with issue 9/1993 of the Banco de España’s Statistical Bulletin (with data up to December 1992), being replaced by the so-called ''Balance of Payments (Transaction Register)''.

In Boletín Estadístico. Series históricas. XIII Sector exterior. November 1978, you can find detailed notes on the different tables that made up this statistic at that time.