The altitude in La Paz can slowly sneak up on you and make a casual stroll in the park seem like an arduous, uphill struggle. An overhaul of Bolivia’s banking regulations is starting to have a similar effect on the country’s lending environment.
Despite that, the banking sector is in reasonably good shape. Over the last 10 years Bolivian banks have been on a tear, boosted by a hydrocarbons boom that has tripled the size of the country’s economy (GDP growth is expected to be around 4% in 2017, its slowest rate since 2009).
At the end of 2017, the banking system’s loan portfolio had grown to $20 billion, five-and-a-half times bigger than it was a decade earlier, according to Asoban, Bolivia’s association of private banks.
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