By Yeleidys Hernandez Toledo on April 14, 2026
The measure reaches the following public financial institutions: Banco de Venezuela, Banco Digital de los Trabajadores and Banco del Tesoro
Seven (7) years after the U.S. government sanctioned the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lifted sanctions on the country’s main financial institution. The measure was announced by the US agency through General License number 57 published on Tuesday, April 14 on its website.
The lifting of sanctions also covers the following public financial institutions: Banco de Venezuela, Banco Digital de los Trabajadores and Banco del Tesoro.
The measure comes 24 hours after the president in charge, Delcy Rodriguez, again urged the United States to lift the illegal sanctions that that country has maintained since March 2015 against Venezuela. His exhortation was made in the framework of the signing of an agreement between Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (Pdvsa) and Chevron, an event attended by the U.S. Chargé d’affaires for Venezuela, Laura Dogu, and the Northern nation’s undersecretary of Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy, Kyle Haustveit.
“I always take the opportunity to insist that we must move towards a Venezuela without sanctions, I always tell the ambassador, to the government, because it is also a way to provide institutional legal security to investors who come to Venezuela (…),” Rodriguez said on Monday, April 13 in the Salón Sol de Peru of the Miraflores Palace, Caracas.
The BCV was sanctioned in April 2019, that is, when Donald Trump ruled, who began his first term on January 20, 2017 and ended on January 20, 2021.
What does License 57 say?
The document issued by the Gringo body on Tuesday, April 14, states: “All transactions prohibited by the Regulations of Sanctions of Venezuela, 31 CFR part 591 (VSR), which are inherent and necessary for the provision, export or re-export, directly or indirectly, of financial services to, from or for the benefit of the following persons: (1) Central Bank of Venezuela; (2) Banco de Venezuela, S.A. Banco Universal (Bank of Venezuela); (3) Banco Digital de los Trabajadores Banco Universal C.A.; (4) Banco del Tesoro, C.A. Universal Bank (Treasury Bank) (…)”.
Describes the text that for the purposes of this general license, the term “financial services” includes “the maintenance, operation or closure of accounts; loans; transfers; transfers of funds; banking services; money transfer services; collections; submissions; promises; orders;
appropriations; acceptance of deposits; insurance; guarantees; cash withdrawals; check services; transfers through the Automated Compensation Chamber (ACH); electronic transfers; debit cards, prepaid cards, ATM transactions and any other payment as defined in Article 3-602 of the Uniform Commercial Code; the issuance and use of payment cards and digital wallets;
currency exchange; banking, payment and correspondent accounts denominated in US dollars.”
It also encompasses: “Services related to the collection, sending, processing or receipt of funds or remittances; services related to the processing or receipt of salaries, pensions, annuities, payroll and other labor payments or benefits; transfers of funds sent through mobile money, mobile wallets, digital bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, online payments or other digital technologies; services and technologies related to security, fraud prevention, verification;
The withdrawal of the illegal sanctions that for seven (7) years applied the United States against the BCV, as well as the sanctioning measures it maintained against the Bank of Venezuela, Digital Bank of Workers and Treasury Bank, does not mean the lifting of the more than a thousand unilateral coercive measures that since 2015 maintains the Yankee regime against Venezuela.
In fact, on February 18, 2026, the U.S. regime extended for another year the sanctions imposed on March 8, 2015, by then-President Barack Obama, in Executive Order 13692, with which he declares Venezuela as an alleged “unusual and extraordinary threat.”
Since 2015, both Obama and the leaders who succeeded him, that is, Donald Trump in his first term (2017-2021) and in the second (2025-), as well as Joe Biden (2021-2025), have imposed more than a thousand sanctions.
Source: Diario Vea, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English