Family of first CB Governor Exter visiting Sri Lanka

The children of US economist John Exter, the founder of the Central Bank of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1950, are holidaying in Sri Lanka on a reunion trip and travelling to places their parents frequented.

“It’s a memorable trip and family reunion,” said John, 70 years and the eldest son who carries his late father’s name. The late Mr. Exter has two sons and two daughters and three of them were present for lunch hosted by Central Bank (CB) Governor Nivard Cabraal on Friday. “They treated us very well,” John Exter told the Sunday Times, on the visit to the CB headquarters in Colombo.

He recalled late N.U. Jayawardene, the first Ceylonese Governor of the CB who took over from Exter in 1953. “I remember as a 10-year-old my father introducing me to N.U. Jayawardene,” he said briefly by telephone yesterday, a few hours before the Exter families went on a week-long tour of the country.

The older Exter graduated from Harvard University as an economist, joined the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and went on to serve first as adviser to the Secretary of Finance of the Philippines and then to the Minister of Finance of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on the establishment of central banks. Subsequently, he founded the Central Bank of Ceylon in 1950 when J.R. Jayewardene was the Minister of Finance. He died in 2006 at the age of 95.