Correspondent banking in Venezuela: what a U.S. bank asks before opening
OFAC general license 57 has authorized dollar correspondent account services since April 2026, and the FATF states in writing that it does not require enhanced due diligence on the jurisdictions it monitors. What decides is section 1010.610: it requires the U.S. bank to weigh five factors, one of them the supervision Sudeban exercises over its Venezuelan counterparty.
The body that sets the world's anti-money-laundering standards wrote that it does not call for enhanced due diligence on the jurisdictions it monitors and that its standards do not envisage cutting off entire classes of customers. U.S. banks cut anyway. That was their own decision, which is why no rule reverses it on its own.
A Venezuelan company that wants to pay for an import in dollars needs some bank in its country to hold an account at a U.S. bank. That account is called a correspondent relationship, every one of the client's international payments runs through it, and today it is largely closed.
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