Venezuelan banks shrivel as inflation roars and credit dries up

Venezuela’s hyperinflation has turned the struggling OPEC nation’s once-powerful banks into warehouses of useless cash that are worth a total of only $40 million, according to a Reuters analysis of regulatory data. Although banks such as Citigroup Inc (C.N) and Spain’s BBVA (BBVA.MC) are maintaining operations in the hopes of better times, the value of the country’s 31 banks in 2017 was equivalent to that of a single mid-sized bank in the Dominican Republic, according to bank regulator data. More…