Banesco is a bank based in Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

, Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. it is the country's largest bank, with a market share

Market share

Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...

 of 14.2%. It has 440 branches in all parts of Venezuela. The primary competitors are the Banco Mercantil

Banco Mercantil

Banco Mercantil or simply Mercantil is a Venezuelan financial institution based in Caracas, the second largest bank in the country. At the end of 2007, it owned 321 agencies, 313 of them established in Venezuela.- History :...

 (Merchant Bank), Banco Occidental de Descuento

Banco Occidental de Descuento

Banco Occidental de Descuento is a Venezuelan bank. With around 6.6% of the Venezuelan market, it was Venezuela's fifth-largest bank in 2009...

 (Western Discount Bank), Banco de Venezuela

Banco de Venezuela

Banco de Venezuela is an international universal bank based in Caracas. It was the market leader in Venezuela until 2007, when it fell to third place, with an 11.3% market share for deposits; its major competitors are Banesco, Banco Mercantil and BBVA Banco Provincial...

 (Bank of Venezuela) and the BBVA Banco Provincial

BBVA Banco Provincial

BBVA Banco Provincial is a financial institution in Venezuela.-History:Founded on October 15, 1953, in Caracas, Venezuela, as Banco Provincial with a capital of Bs. 15,000,000. In November 1996, Banco Provincial became the first universal bank in Venezuela by expanding its business objectives to...

 (Provincial Bank); all these banks including Banesco form the upper stratum of the Bank Ranking of SUDEBAN. The financial group also includes an insurance, and consumer banking division. The bank is a member of the Banking Association of Venezuela and their mascot is Baneskín "El Pana de Ahorro" (The Savings 'Buddy'). Banesco's Caracas headquarters, Ciudad Banesco, at 65,000 m², is Latin America's largest bank headquarters.

History

Banesco is one of the first Venezuelan banks holding only Venezuelan capital. It was founded in 1977 as the Banco Agroindustrial Venezolano (Venezuelan Agroindustrial Bank), until it changed its name to Banco Financiero (Financial Bank) in 1987. In 1992, after changing their name to Bancentro, the bank was acquired by the Banesco Financial Organization, the banking division came to dominate the company and was combinded with the other divisions to form a banco universal (universal bank) (i.e. a bank that competes in all banking sectors like commercial banking, investment banking

Investment banking

An investment bank is a financial institution that assists individuals, corporations and governments in raising capital by underwriting and/or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities...

, lending, etc.).