Banco de Venezuela (abbreviated: BDV) is an international

universal bank A universal bank participates in many kinds of banking activities and is both a commercial bank and an investment bank as well as providing other financial services such as insurance.Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

until 2007, when it fell to third place, with an 11.3% market share for deposits; its major competitors are

Banesco Banesco Banco Universal C.A. is a Venezuelan financial institution whose principal branch is located in Caracas. The bank is part of the Asociación Bancaria de Venezuela (Venezuela's Banking Association). Banesco has 340 branches all over Vene ...

, Banco Mercantil and

BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (), better known by its initialism BBVA, is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Bilbao, Spain. It is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and is present ...

Banco Provincial. As of June 2008, it had 285 branches in Venezuela.

History

The bank was founded in 1883 as ''Banco Comercial'', which on 2 September 1890 changed its name to Banco de Venezuela. It was initially a

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

and taxation financial institution for the

Venezuelan government Venezuela is a federal presidential republic. The chief executive is the President of Venezuela who is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the President. Legislative power is vested in the National Asse ...

. In 1920, it had already established 10 branches in the country, and due to the lack of a

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...

, the Banco de Venezuela became one of the six financial institutions with the right to issue

banknote A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable instrument, negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes w ...

s, until the creation of the Banco Central de Venezuela in 1940. In 1976, BDV inaugurated its hundredth branch nationwide. In 1978 the bank introduced 24-hour

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s and new point of sales terminals. The bank opened branches in New York and

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast ...

in 1977 and 1979 respectively, and two years later founded a subsidiary, ''Banco de Venezuela International'', to offer a better service outside the country. In 1984, the bank inaugurated its new headquarters in the center of

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

. On 6 October 2000, BDV purchased 100% of Banco Caracas, becoming the largest bank in the country.

State involvement

In 1993, after three years struggle for shareholder control, Banco de Venezuela was taken over by ''Banco Consolidado''Banco de Venezuela
Historia
, accessed 17 March 2009 to form ''Banco de Venezuela y Consolidado''. However, Banco Consolidado was closed during the

Venezuelan banking crisis of 1994 The 1994 banking crisis occurred in Venezuela when a number of the banks of Venezuela were taken over by the government. The first to fail, in January 1994, was Banco Latino, the country's second-largest bank. Later, two banks accounting for 18% of ...

. Following the closure, BDV suffered financial problems in the context of the national financial crisis. On 9 August 1994, BDV became the tenth bank bailed out by the Venezuelan government during the crisis, with the government taking a majority stake for an estimated at US$294m. In 1996 the bank was reprivatised, with

Grupo Santander Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centre ...

purchasing 93,38% of its shares, for around US$350m. In June 2008, Grupo Santander began discussion with Venezuelan banker Victor Vargas, regarding a possible acquisition of BDV, but the Venezuelan government stopped the negotiations. On 31 July of the same year, Venezuelan President

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

stated: "I'm interested in the purchase (by the government) and we going to nationalize it". However by March 2009 negotiations with Grupo Santander had still not been completed, and Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said it was possible the takeover could be abandoned.''Bloomberg'', 8 March 2009
Venezuela Still Negotiating Santander Takeover, Minister Says
/ref> A final agreement for a $1.05bn purchase price was signed in May 2009.''Venezuelanalysis'', 25 May 2009
Venezuela Buys Bank of Venezuela for $US 1.05 billion
/ref>

References

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Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

1890 establishments in Venezuela Government-owned companies of Venezuela Companies listed on the Caracas Stock Exchange Venezuelan brands Companies based in Caracas