The IMF and World Bank said Thursday they are restoring relations with Venezuela, further legitimizing the interim government and opening new doors to financial support.

“Guided by the views of International Monetary Fund members representing a majority of the IMF’s total voting power, and consistent with long standing practice, the Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva today announced that the IMF is now dealing with the Government of Venezuela, under the administration of acting President Delcy Rodriguez,” it said in a statement.

Over recent days, the Fund polled its members on whether they saw Rodriguez as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

The World Bank quickly followed the Fund in recognizing the Rodriguez government, saying in a statement, “Guided by the outcome of the IMF’s polling process, the World Bank Group today announced that it is resuming dealings with the Government of Venezuela, under the administration of acting President Delcy Rodríguez.”

Recognition of the Rodriguez government by both institutions paves the way them to formally begin economic data-gathering, provide technical advice,  and to potentially offer financial support to the government, if Venezuela were to ask for it.

Relations between the financial institutions and Venezuela broke down in March 2019 when the Fund recognized the country’s opposition — which controlled parliament — as the legitimate government of the South American country.

Rodriguez was the country’s vice president until early January, when US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a shock overnight operation. Rodriguez was subsequently made interim president.

Since then, Washington has exerted heavy pressure on the country to open its economy to foreign investment — especially its energy sector.

“Trump frequently and publicly talks about how much he likes Delcy and how closely they’re working together,” Henry Ziemer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington told AFP. “But the institutional recognition is, I think, an important next step — going beyond the personal to the institutional.”

“It’s important for Delcy’s appearance of legitimacy,” he said.

Beyond the funds that could now flow from the IMF and the World Bank, the institutional recognition could reassure foreign private investors who were anxious about taking bets on the country.

“I think as many green lights is good, I should say necessary for foreign direct investment to start flowing into Venezuela,” Ziemer said, while noting that the security situation was still fragile.

The announcement comes during the week-long IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings that has drawn thousands of government officials, economists, investors and observers to Washington.

Behind the scenes, the US has encouraged greater engagement with Venezuela under Rodriguez.

On Tuesday the US eased sanctions on the Venezuelan Central Bank, while on the same day US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previewed this decision, saying the Fund was “working on bringing Venezuela back in, to make it look more like a normal economy.”

Rodriguez, a veteran of the left-wing “Chavista” Venezuelan political movement, is the first woman to sit atop Venezuela’s government.

Her position over the long-term is not guaranteed, however.

Last week, Venezuela’s opposition called for fresh presidential elections, citing the country’s constitution.

pnb/mlm/sla

The bank reported on Wednesday that Q1 2026 net income was $8.6 billion, with earnings per share up 25% to $1.11, which is the highest level in almost 20 years. On a media call, Borthwick pointed to AI as an increasingly important driver, highlighting a new internal tool for financial advisors.

The Meeting Journey tool helps advisors prepare for client meetings by pulling together key information. BofA has about 18,000 financial advisors across its wealth management platform, serving millions of clients, he said. Before meeting with a client, advisors regularly need to update themselves with a wide range of information such as client history, recent activity, and CIO guidance, he explained. 

The tool searches and consolidates client relationship insights and recent activity into ready-to-use prep materials and, with client consent, acts as an AI notetaker during virtual meetings. It also summarizes meeting decisions and next steps based on those notes. The goal is to cut down hours of manual prep and free advisors to focus on client relationships.

“Efforts like this translate into results,” Borthwick said, pointing to record first-quarter revenue and improved cost control. 

Preparing for meetings once meant pulling data from multiple systems; now much of that work is automated, he said. “Not necessarily the judgment—that can be human,” Borthwick added. The bank invests around $13.5 billion annually in technology, including approximately $4 billion on new initiatives like AI.

More broadly, BofA’s strong quarter was driven by several factors:
—Net interest income rose 9% to $15.9 billion as loan and deposit growth accelerated.
—Trading revenue hit $6.3 billion—its best in roughly 15 years—boosted by a record high 30% jump in equities.
—Investment banking fees climbed 21% to $1.8 billion on a solid M&A market.
—Asset management fees grew 15% to $4.2 billion.
—Productivity gains, including from AI, helped the company maintain cost discipline and improve its efficiency ratio by 170 basis points to 61%. 

With revenues outpacing expenses, BofA achieved its third consecutive quarter of operating leverage at 2.9%. This week, Morningstar raised its fair value estimate for BofA to $65 per share, up from $58.

Amid ongoing uncertainty around geopolitics, rates, and credit, Borthwick said the bank’s data shows a resilient U.S. consumer. Unemployment remains at around 4.3%, supporting spending, while a recent rise in gas outlays hasn’t materially changed the broader picture, he said. “You can see that in our asset quality,” he added.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Christopher Filiaggi was appointed interim CFO of Corebridge Financial, Inc. (NYSE: CRBG), effective April 24. Filiaggi, chief accounting officer of Corebridge since 2023, will serve as interim CFO while the company prepares for its planned merger with Equitable Holdings, Inc. This appointment follows the previously announced transition of CFO Elias Habayeb. Prior to his current role, Filiaggi held finance leadership positions with Corebridge and American International Group, Inc.

Sean McCabe was appointed CFO of Cineverse, an entertainment technology company (Nasdaq: CNVS), effective April 20. He succeeds Mark Lindsey, with whom the company is in discussions to transition into a senior financial consulting role. McCabe previously served as VP and corporate controller at Cineverse in 2023 and 2024. He returns from Freestar, an ad-tech company, where he led accounting and finance teams and worked on mergers and acquisitions, treasury, and capital structure optimization. Before joining Freestar and Cineverse, McCabe held controller positions at Jukin Media, Fulgent Genetics, and National Grid.

Big Deal

BridgeWise’s inaugural “State of AI for Wealth in 2026” report finds that 78% of respondents globally are using AI tools for investment-related queries, with nearly half (45.7%) emerging as power users, consulting AI “always” or “often” when seeking investment information. The global study is based on 2,100 respondents across 19 countries.

The report also introduces a Global Wealth AI Optimism Index, a proprietary benchmark that evaluates the 19 included countries through four weighted pillars: adoption (AI usage frequency), confidence (trust in AI accuracy), edge (perceived competitive advantage when using AI for investing), and momentum (intent to replace traditional investment research with AI).

Going deeper

“From wool sneakers to GPUs: Allbirds’ desperate AI pivot and 600% stock surge, explained” is a Fortune article by Phil Wahba.

On Wednesday, Allbirds, a sustainable footwear brand, “announced that it had secured $50 million in financing to turn itself into a tech company with a ‘long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider’ and that it would change its name to NewBird AI,” Wahba writes. You can read more here.

Overheard

“When people understand how their work drives the company’s value, they act like owners: they innovate, they solve problems, and they stay.”

—Vicente Reynal, chairman, president, and CEO of Ingersoll Rand, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled “Here’s how employee ownership helped drive more than 8x enterprise value growth.”

When George Cherchian attended an open home in Sydney’s west recently, he was on the look out for one thing. A key detail would indicate how much competition he would have in vying for the house.

He attended every inspection for the property prior to the scheduled auction date. And when he didn’t see it, the buyers agent knew he was in a good position.

“I went to every single open home, and what I look for there is essentially the same faces. So if I’m seeing your face at every open I go to for one particular property, it tells me that you are just as interested in it as my clients are, or as I am,” he told Yahoo Finance.

“But that wasn’t the case here, we didn’t have any sort of repeat faces.”

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In the end, he put an offer in ahead of the planned auction date. Despite it being considerably lower than the advertised asking price, the vendor ultimately accepted it.

On behalf of the buyer, he secured the Baulkham Hills property for $1.9 million, $200,000 below the $2.1 million asking price.

Cherchian explained that in this particular case the vendor was in a position “where they couldn’t really afford to defer the settlement” as they had to sell because they had committed to buying another property.

But as “caution” grips property markets in Australia’s capital cities thanks to rising interest rates, higher fuel prices, ongoing uncertainty with the Iran war and impending policy changes around the taxation of investment properties, Cherchian said the sale is emblematic of the opportunities buyers can find right now in a less competitive market.

“Now that there are not as many buyers to contend with, there’s almost a bit of a window of opportunity for those who are able to make a decision,” he told Yahoo Finance.

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Overall, he said many buyers in Sydney were showing increased “caution” during so much uncertainty. As a result, “the things that need to transact, they are transacting at a discount”.

Auction clearance rates in Sydney and Melbourne dropped in March, with the most recent results from April showing a clearance rate of just 54 per cent in Sydney, according to Domain, about 10 per cent lower than at the same time last year.

Dwelling prices went backwards in Sydney and Melbourne in the March quarter this year, according to property data giant Cotality. Prices fell 0.6 per cent in Melbourne and 0.2 per cent in Sydney.

Story continues

Meanwhile this week, ANZ cut its forecast for capital city property price growth to be below inflation in 2026 in the face of weak consumer confidence, rising interest rates and the Middle East war.

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“There are still some who recognise that uncertainty can create opportunity. They’re asking whether this is a chance to secure better terms, and in some cases, it is,” Cherchian said.

“It is definitely is a good time, especially for first time buyers” who don’t need to time a sale with an existing property.

NSW broker Nathan Linton who works further north of the city, told Yahoo Finance of a similar success story recently for one of his clients that he got approved in November but had been struggling for months to secure a property.

“I’m having clients that are having success buying at reasonable prices, probably because there’s less competition at the moment,” he said, pointing to a backdrop of “fear and mystery”.

“This particular client, we did a quick digital evaluation (on a desired property), and it was worth $1.4 million. And he’s gone in there, attended the auction, and they let it go for $1.21 million,” he told Yahoo.

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“I think the good news story that people kind of like to hear sometimes is that there’s still opportunity. And maybe in a market where everyone’s scared, it’s a good time to be buying because you can have a bargain.”

Linton runs a subreddit called ‘Asked a Broker’ where he shared the recent anecdote and was met with similar stories from other Aussies.

“We just bought ours … for $300k under what it last sold for a few years ago!” one Melbourne buyer commented.

“We lowballed not expecting anything and were happy to walk away given all the uncertainty but they said yes. Definitely a lot of fear out there.”

While rising interest rates crimp borrowing power, Linton also agreed the current conditions could help first home buyers with a big enough deposit.

The broker said rising interest rates will impact buyers a little differently depending on their profile. As an example, each standard increase of 0.25 per cent in the RBA’s official cash rate would mean:

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• A single person with an income of $100,000 and no dependents would see their borrowing capacity reduced by $12,000.

• A married couple with one child and a household income of $200,000 would see their borrowing power reduced by about $25,000 for each interest rate hike.

The higher the borrowing amount the bigger the overall numerical impact, he noted, with most banks and brokers in the industry indicating the average home loan would see borrowing capacity reduced by $25,000 to $30,000 with each 0.25 interest rate increase.

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