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| Headquarters | Avenida Urdaneta, Caracas 1010, Venezuela[1] |
|---|---|
| Established | 8 September 1939; 84 years ago (1939-09-08)[2] |
| Ownership | 100% state ownership[3] |
| President | Calixto Ortega Sánchez |
| Central bank of | Venezuela |
| Currency | Venezuelan bolívar VEF (ISO 4217) |
| Reserves | $9.8 billion |
| Website | www |
The Central Bank of Venezuela (Spanish: Banco Central de Venezuela, BCV) is the central bankofVenezuela. It maintains a fixed exchange rate for the Venezuelan bolívar and since 1996 is the governing agent of the Venezuelan Clearing House System (including an automated clearing house).[4]
Since its inception in the late 1930s, the BCV was given a clear mandate to control the monetary policy of the nation, centralizing the operations of a handful of private banks that used to mint the Venezuelan currency, the bolívar. For almost 50 years the BCV managed to sustain a remarkable strong currency, with inflation rates hovering on the 2-3% mark during that period.
However, since the oil glut of the 1980s and the first serious devaluation of the currency in 1983 (known in Venezuela as Viernes Negro, or Black Friday) the bolívar has been plagued with chronic instability, mistrust and declining value that has been fed by the continued rise in inflation, topping an estimate for 2018 of one million per cent. Most of the foreign reserves are held as gold bars in Germany (almost 64%).[5]
Until 2015 the Supplementary System for the Administration of Foreign Currency (SICAD) operated as an alternative foreign exchange system for businesses and individuals. Given its ineffectiveness and the continued rise of the parallel (black market) exchange rate the system was discontinued in favor of the "Complementary Currency System", known for its Spanish acronym DICOM.[6]
Since December 2017 Venezuela the CPI has presented a behavior that fits most of the definitions for hyperinflation, the first in the country's history. The bank, subject to a strong control by the executive branch of the Venezuelan government, has ceased the publication of metrics such as the CPI and gross domestic product variation, creating a vacuum that has left investors and the public in a general state of disarray.
In April 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the Central Bank of Venezuela "to prevent it from being used as a tool of the illegitimate Maduro regime".[7]
By law, the Central Bank of Venezuela is autonomous to formulate and exercise policies in its field of competence and it performs its duties and functions in coordination with the general economic policy.[8] The Constitution grants the central bank autonomy to outline and implement the policies. However, as of 2016, reforms deemed unconstitutional by some effectively nullified the BCV's independent status.[9]
The export, import or trade of Venezuelan or foreign currency are subject to the regulations established by the BCV, including the departure or arrival of coin and notes made by another countries by BCV's express order.[10]
The Central Bank is able to issue bonds through the System for Transactions with Foreign Currency Securities (SITME). In 2012, it was reported that $44 million worth of bonds were purchased through SITME in a single day for Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.[11]
| President | Took office | Left office | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesús Herrera Mendoza | 1940 | 1948 | [12] |
| Carlos Mendoza Goiticoa | 1948 | 1953 | [12] |
| Aurelio Arreaza Arreaza | 1953 | 1958 | [12] |
| Alfonso Espinosa | 1958 | 1960 | [12] |
| Alfredo Machado Gómez | 1961 | 1968 | [12] |
| Benito Raúl Losada | 1968 | 1971 | [12] |
| Alfredo Lafée | 1971 | 1976 | [12] |
| Benito Raúl Losada | 1976 | 1979 | [12] |
| Carlos Rafael Silva | 1979 | 1981 | [12] |
| Leopoldo Díaz Bruzual | 1981 | 1984 | [12] |
| Benito Raúl Losada | 1984 | 1986 | [12] |
| Hernán Anzola | 1986 | 1987 | [12] |
| Mauricio García Araujo | 1987 | 1989 | [12] |
| Pedro R. Tinoco | 1989 | 1992 | [12] |
| Miguel Rodríguez Fandeo | 1992 | [12] | |
| Ruth de Krivoy | 1992 | 1994 | [12] |
| Antonio Casas González | 1994 | 1999 | [12] |
| Diego Luis Castellanos | 2000 | 2005 | [12] |
| Gastón Parra Luzardo | 2005 | 2009 | [12] |
| Nelson Merentes | 2009 | 2013 | [12] |
| Edmée Betancourt | 2013 | [12] | |
| Eudomar Tovar | 2013 | 2014 | [12] |
| Nelson Merentes | 2014 | 2017 | [13][12] |
| Ricardo Sanguino | 2017 | [14][12] | |
| Ramón Augusto Lobo Moreno | 2017 | 2018 | [15][12] |
| Calixto Ortega Sánchez | 2018 | present |
Banco Central de Venezuela was formed in 1939 and is headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela.
Similarly, in those Clearing Houses in which automated mechanisms of clearing or exchange of checks cannot be established, the use of diskettes may be dispensed with or substituted by some other mean.
Around 64 percent of Venezuela's $15.4 billion in foreign reserves are held in gold bars, which limits President Nicolas Maduro's government's ability to quickly mobilize hard currency for imports or debt service.
The New BCV Law provides a series of reforms among which we would highlight the following: Authorization for the arrival and departure from the territory of monetary species representatives of the bolivar
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced during his weekly broadcast Sunday that economist Ricardo Sanguino was nominated to replace Nelson Merentes as the country's central bank chief.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appointed Finance Minister Ramon Lobo as the country's new central bank president, replacing Ricardo Sanguino.
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10°30′36″N 66°54′55″W / 10.5100°N 66.9152°W / 10.5100; -66.9152
