July closed with a balance of foreign currency deposits of 7,979.4 million bolívares (approximately $1,378 million), which is equivalent to 46% of the total deposits in the national bank, which totaled 17,314.6 million bolívares (approximately $2,990 million). )
Bank dollarization seems to have reached a point of stability close to 50% of the total existing deposits in Venezuelan banks, reaching 46% during the month of July.
The trend in recent months has been towards a slight decrease in funds deposited in foreign currency accounts, especially after the application of the Tax on Large Financial Transactions (IGTF) that taxes operations in dollars.
According to figures from Aristimuño Herrera & Asociados published by Banking and BusinessJuly closed with a balance of foreign currency accounts of 7,979.4 million bolívares ($1,300 million approximately), which is equivalent to 46% of the total deposits in the national bank, which totaled 17,314.6 million bolívares ($2,800 about).
In contrast to June, the amount of foreign currency deposits increased by 4.77%. Total deposits, which include both national currency and foreign currency, rose to 5.9%.
This denoted a setback in the frequency of growth of deposits in foreign currency, since in June the figure stood at 8.3% and was higher than the increase during that month of total deposits, which recorded an increase of 7.12%. . In July, the situation was reversed, which indicates a change in trend and a more modest rate of increase in foreign currency deposits.
In fact, when calculating in foreign currency, the balance of foreign currency accounts rose by just 0.14%. Due to the depreciation of the bolivar in the last two months, more and more bolivars are required to reflect the same number of dollars.
The banking entities that report the largest amount of foreign currency deposits are the Banco Nacional de Crédito (BNC) with a balance of 1,129.87 million bolívares ($195.03 million); Banco Mercantil with 847.33 million bolívares ($146.26 million); and BBVA Provincial with a balance of 698.46 million bolívares ($120.56 million).
However, these are not the banks with the highest degree of dollarization. This characteristic continues to be preserved by Bancamiga, since 76% of its internal deposits are in dollars. On the same level is Banplus, also with 76% of its portfolio deposits in foreign currency.
Dollarization loses its pulse
As banking is beginning to detect, the use of dollars has lost weight in recent months. Some of the factors have been the relative stability of the bolivar, the convertibility facilities between the two currencies and the IGTF, which imposes an additional 3% on payments in dollars.
According to the consulting firm Ecoanalítica, transactional dollarization —which only measures commercial payments— decreased by 20% compared to its 2021 levels, at least in Caracas.
A study applied by the consultant in Caracas from May 3 to June 4, 2022 showed that payments in foreign currency represented 39.9% of the total transactions processed in the businesses studied. In 2021 that portion reached 59.8%.
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