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Central Bank of Venezuela cuts reserve requirement on time deposits to 50%

The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) amended the regulations governing legal reserve requirements through Resolution No. 26-08-02, reducing the rates applied to time deposits at commercial, universal, and microfinance banks, effective September 15, 2026.

Under the regulatory framework published in Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 7,073, the legal reserve requirement on net time-deposit liabilities denominated in local currency was reduced from 73% to 50% for commercial and universal banks.

Meanwhile, institutions classified as microfinance banks saw the reserve requirement on time deposits cut from 40% to 27%, encouraging the deployment of funds and credit intermediation in the sector.

Operational impact

Although the regulatory easing is intended to free up liquid funds at banks and stimulate the flow of financing to the real economy, in line with the structure of lending and deposit interest rates, economic experts have qualified the measure’s actual impact.

Economist Hermes Pérez said in a post on the social network X that the reserve requirement reduction introduced by the central bank is “marginal,” since it applies exclusively to time deposits.

According to the specialist’s projections, as deposits under this arrangement increase, more funds will become available for financing. He estimates that this growth will translate into a limited increase in the loan portfolio of between 0.1% and 0.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of the year.

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