Caracas Daily Journal: Banco de Venezuela will be put on a municipal basis with branches in small towns -- similar to Banco Caixa in Brasil -- after it passes to state ownership under the latest nationalization by President Hugo Chavez.
Outside major urban centers, bank branches are few and far between in rural areas of the interior, a point noted by Chavez when he referred to the takeover plan in his regular broadcast, Alo Presidente, last Sunday, which was broadcast from the Orinoco.
"Here in Caicara del Orinoco there are only three bank branches," he said. One represented the Andean development bank, Banfoandes, another Banco Industrial and the other Banco de Guayana. There were many municipalities that didn't even have one bank branch, he added.
Chavez was quite open about his wish to copy the model set by Caixa, having recently met with senior executives from the bank. "The good experiences have to be copied," he said. The takeover had been welcomed by the private banking sector and its Spanish owners, Grupo Santander, he claimed.
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