COUNTRY INDEX
LATIN AMERICA
CENTRAL AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN
LATIN AMERICA
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ARGENTINA |
Best Bank: Santander Argentina | |
Best Investment Bank: Goldman Sachs | |
Argentine banks are used to facing difficult macroeconomic situations. But today’s conditions are similar to those that created the toxic brew of financial collapse in 2001: untenable foreign exchange controls, spiralling inflation, capital flight and negative real credit and GDP growth.
Whether or not the country can stave off disaster before this October’s presidential elections is unclear, but what is certain is that the banks are having to choose between loading up on rapidly deteriorating sovereign credit risk or being exposed to inflation that has now risen into triple digits.
No banks win in this kind of scenario, but relative strength comes from scale.