Venezuelan Central Bank Rebuffs Reports Claiming It Plans To Ditch Visa, Mastercard

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published May 22, 2019 | 12:27 PM

The Central Bank of Venezuela refuted reports saying that it was planning to suspend Visa, Mastercard and Maestro operations by the end of January 2020

MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd May, 2019) The Central Bank of Venezuela refuted reports saying that it was planning to suspend Visa, Mastercard and Maestro operations by the end of January 2020.

The bank stressed that it was only planning to launch an additional and alternative platform for payments. "[Yet, we are not going] to stop the operations of international debit and credit card systems," the statement said.

Earlier this week, Banca y Negocios news portal reported that the bank and the country's banking sector regulator SUDEBAN decided to launch their own payment system and halt Visa, Mastercard and Maestro operations by the end of January 2020.

SUDEBAN instructed financial institutions to create an independent payment system in the light of the recent US sanctions against Venezuela and new threats, according to the report.

Earlier in May, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that his country was becoming free from the US dollar. The president called the ongoing changes a process of liberation from the US blockade.