There is little that is conventional about banking in president Hugo Chávez’s socialist Venezuela – and still less following the South American leader’s decision, on August 1, to prevent the sale to a local bank of a unit of Spain’s Grupo Santander – the third biggest bank in the country by assets, Banco de Venezuela – announcing that the Venezuelan state would buy it instead.
Just consider the unconventionality of how Mr Chávez described – after announcing the nationalisation – his government’s plans for the Venezuelan bank.