The quasi-receivership of countries with high levels of debt was a method of enforcement short of military intervention. Several examples are found on the European continent. In Greece, for instance, the International Financial Commission of Control managed several revenue sources pledged for service of external debt from 1898 onwards. Such pledges were a common feature of international debt administration in the late nineteenth century.

In Egypt, the Caisse de la Dette exercised the same function until 1940. In the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Debt Council held sway over Ottoman finances from 1876 onwards. These quasi-receiverships resulted from collective creditor action. Alongside other European creditor nations, Great Britain called on the Ottoman Empire to establish an international debt administration to take charge of revenues for the satisfaction of its sovereign debt. The British government gave ‘firm, but moderate assistance’ to its creditors.

The United States, even though not acting as blatantly as European powers, also assumed fiscal control over debtor countries. The intrusiveness of financial control varied. The US championed a more benign type of receivership in Santo Domingo, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua. These debtor countries pledged their customs revenues to the repayment of external debt under US-supervised receiverships. In effect, the Dominican Republic was governed by the US military from 1916 to 1924 – and collection of the debt was guaranteed by the US navy. The receivership lasted from 1907 to 1940.