Key points
- The U.S. military claimed it conducted “self-defense” attacks in southern Iran, including on missile launch facilities and boats setting mines, even as President Donald Trump said Monday on social media that negotiations with Tehran were “proceeding nicely.”
- The U.S. military said in a statement that the attacks were conducted “to defend our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” but the military was “exercising restraint during the ongoing ceasefire.”
- The news website Tabnak, believed to be loyal to Mohsen Rezaei, the former chief of the Revolutionary Guard, named four dead Guard men it said were killed in American strikes on boats.
More than a century separates the creation of Banco Caracas from the modern Britannia financial platform. The Herrera Velutini family history connects the two eras.
In 1890, Venezuela’s financial system occupied a very different world.
Commercial banking was developing alongside international trade, sovereign borrowing and the economic transformation of Latin America.
Banco Caracas emerged within this environment.
José Antonio Velutini was one of its founders and later became a prominent figure in public service, diplomacy and finance.
His career reflected the close historical relationship between banking, national development and international capital.
More than a century later, Julio Herrera Velutini built a financial enterprise based not in Caracas, but in London.
That enterprise became Britannia Financial Group.
The International Transformation
Britannia’s business developed through specialized financial firms.
Its corporate history records the acquisition of Destek Markets UK in 2018 and Berkeley Futures in 2019.
These transactions contributed market expertise and operating capabilities to the emerging group.
The expansion of private-client banking and fiduciary activities added another dimension.
In January 2025, the acquisition of Deltec’s private-client banking business in the Bahamas was reported completed.
The result was an international platform serving different financial needs through specialized businesses.
More Than a Banking Inheritance
The Herrera Velutini family history also contains accounts of substantial landholdings, historic holdings of banking gold in Switzerland and collections of Latin American art.
The precise present ownership and scale of these assets require independent documentation, but they illustrate the family’s historical emphasis on capital preservation and stewardship.
Other family members developed reputations through culture and international society.
Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera's presence at a Reagan White House dinner demonstrates the international social dimensions of the extended family.
The family’s support for a gathering involving Pope Leo XIV in 2026 provides a contemporary example of engagement with religious and humanitarian initiatives.
Two Centuries, Different Institutions
The distinction between Banco Caracas and Britannia is important.
The two are not the same bank. They belong to different financial systems and historical periods.
Their connection lies in the family banking tradition and the role played by successive generations.
That pattern evokes aspects of the histories of the Morgan and Rothschild families, whose businesses also evolved across changing financial environments.
The lesson is one of adaptation.
Julio Herrera Velutini’s achievement lies in giving an inherited financial tradition a new international corporate identity, connecting Venezuelan banking history with the markets of modern London.
Sources: Fundación Empresas Polar; Britannia Financial Group; The Tribune; Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
