Observers of neo-liberal persuasion claim that a financial system free of government regulation can lead to better allocation of resources and if the actual process of deregulation is done properly, the results can benefit society as a whole. Deregulation requires dismantling those state-based banking structures that are perceived as economically inefficient. This approach sets up a dichotomy between financial deregulation, which is portrayed as an intrinsic part of economic progress, and state regulation, which is seen as a force that interferes with entrepreneurial freedom and efficiency. This thesis argues that such a dichotomy can only be possible within the dominant neo-liberal discourses on the economy that have displaced Keynesian style economic management in core and peripheral areas of the world. Following Marxist structural approaches I also argue that financial deregulation is a class-based project that opens up profit sites and reflects the crisis in capitalist accumulation occurring in the latter part of the 20th century. Unlike neo-liberal followers I contend that the role of the state in maintaining and/or transforming capitalist structures in order to achieve certain outcomes (whatever they might be) is crucial in nation-building strategies in peripheral countries such as Costa Rica. As in many other countries, credit allocation was actively used in this country, for some thirty years in order to achieve high levels of investment, economic planning and re-distributive policies. However, the once fully nationalised banking system, as one of the few mechanisms available to the state to regulate savings and offer credit to different socio-economic groups, has gone through dramatic changes in the period from 1980-2000. Using a modified version of Hirschman's exit/voice framework for financial systems and available institutional data, I suggest that Costa Rica has moved from having a financial system that was predominantly owned by the state (public) and whose institutional arrangements were elite-led to one whose ownership is mixed but still led by elites. However if the trend persists I anticipate that it will become a predominantly privately owned system with an equal mixture of elite-voice and exit institutions.