The Venezuelan government ordered banking entities to establish the Petro – the cryptocurrency issued by Nicolás Maduro in February – as an account unit.
Through a resolution issued by the Superintendence of Banking Institutions (SUDEBAN), from now on, all financial entities must display financial information in Venezuelan Bolivares and Petros, regardless of their publication media.
“[…] Make the appropriate adaptations in the virtual platform that supports the website of the (banking) Institution, in order to display […], as additional information, all operations, transactions and/or movements, in the unit of account ‘PETRO’, in the same way Bolivares (Bs.S) are portrayed,” reads the first measure of the aforementioned resolution.
Additionally, mobile services provided by each one of the banks must be adapted to express said account unit. The same goes for printed media.
The resolution encourage the running of communicational campaigns that clarifies the effects of this new governmental decision, in order to avoid confusion among clients.
Economic measures
This order is in line with the economic measures imposed by the controversial Head of State on August 20, in an effort to recover a country that has gone deep into a hyperinflation, measured by the IMF in 1,000,000%, keeping the nation in a permanent crisis.
Among the measures, there is the reduction of five zeros to the Bolivar, so to facilitate mathematical calculations and the handling of bills. Additionally, the amount of the minimum wage was increased to 1,800 BsS and pegged to the petro currency, to which the government has given a value based in the price of an oil barrel, that is, around 60 dollars.
Noteworthy, local citizens still struggle to get a clue on what is going on with this new technology, for the government has provided little explanation after the launch of its initial coin offering (ICO) five months ago; besides, the token is referred to by several experts as a scam, and it is not listed in any of the major cryptocurrency exchanges around the world.
Despite all the controversy, the Venezuelan president insists in promoting the virtual asset as a solution to the economic crisis and as an opportunity to sustain a new international coin for the free exchange of foreign currency.
