Finance ministry

A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. It may also be a junior minister in the finance department, the British Treasury, for example has four junior ministers.

A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names across the world, such as "treasury", "finance", "financial affairs", "economy" or "economic affairs". The position of the finance minister might be named for this portfolio, but it may also have some other name, like "Treasurer" or, in the United Kingdom, "Chancellor of the Exchequer".

The duties of a finance minister differ between countries. Typically, they encompass one or more of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation, but there are significant differences between countries:

Finance ministers are also often found in governments of federated states or provinces of a federal country. In these cases their powers may be substantially limited by superior legislative or fiscal policy, notably the control of taxation, spending, currency, inter-bank interest rates and the money supply.

The powers of a finance minister vary between governments. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the finance minister (called the "Chancellor of the Exchequer" and the "Treasurer" respectively) is in practice the most important cabinet post after the Prime Minister.

In the United States, the finance minister is called the "Secretary of the Treasury", though there is a separate and subordinate Treasurer of the United States, and it is the director of the Office of Management and Budget who drafts the budget.

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