There are eight central banks that have some measure of private ownership: US, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Turkey and South Africa.

The Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank are listed companies.

Here’s the ownership structure of the Bank of Japan from their latest annual report. The government owns a controlling 55% of the shares, but individuals own 40%, much to my surprise.

In Switzerland the major shareholders are the cantonal governments. From their latest reports:

The central banks of Greece and Belgium are also listed companies.

The Reserve Bank of South Africa has more than 800 shareholders and its shares are traded on an over-the-counter share transfer facility (OTCSTF) market coordinated within the Bank.

The shareholders of the Bank of Italy are limited to certain types of financial institutions, and no single shareholder is allowed to own more than 3%. I don’t know what powers they have.

Regardless, remember that Greece, Belgium, and Italy are all part of the Eurosystem, so they don’t control monetary policy any more anyway.

In the US, the regional Federal Reserve banks are owned by commercial banks in their district. No individuals can own shares in the regional Feds.

However, one thing you have to understand: there’s a difference between “owning” and “controlling.” These central banks may be privately owned, but they’re still controlled by the government. That is, the government sets out their mandate, appoints the Governor and other senior executives, and (generally) receives the profits from the bank (in Japan and Switzerland there are dividends to shareholders, but these are limited by law to a certain percent of the nominal value of the shares, which means they’re more like a bond than equity.)

More to the point, this kind of “ownership” is nothing like the the kind of ownership that shareholders in a normal private company can exercise.

For example, this is what the Bank of Japan says about the rights of its shareholders:

Here’s what the Swiss National Bank (SNB) says. (The NBA is not the basketball organization, it’s the National Bank Act of 2003, which established the SNB)

Here’s what the Reserve Bank of South Africa says:

After allowing for certain provisions, payment of company tax on profits, transfers to reserves and dividend payments of not more than 10 cents per share to shareholders, the surplus of the RBSA’s earnings is paid to the South African government.

And here’s how the Federal Bank of St. Louis describes the ownership structure of the regional Fed and the Board of Governors:

Those are the only cases of central banks that I know of that aren’t direct branches of the government. I got this information from the website of the South African Reserve Bank, so I assume they know what they’re talking about.