Latin America and Caribbean
LATEST ARTICLES
-
Does Banco Galicia’s acquisition of HSBC Argentina validate president Javier Milei or weaken him?
-
XP has succeeded in Brazil by using its technological efficiencies to win on digital experience and price. But now the incumbents are catching up and XP chief executive Thiago Maffra is focusing on developing service beyond pure online delivery.
-
President Javier Milei campaigned on cuts – and that is what he has delivered. But like all extreme diets, the approach is unsustainable. Time to rethink the plan.
-
The paradox of Itaú is that it has maintained its leadership of Brazil’s banking sector with an ease and assuredness in recent years that belies the radical and continual transformation going on under the surface. The bank’s CFO, Alexsandro Broedel, tells Euromoney that its management’s only real constant is to view every new player as an existential threat – and react accordingly.
-
Reports that the long-rumoured deal has been agreed suggest growing optimism among Argentine bankers about the new administration.
-
The leading neobanks in Brazil seem to have hit their stride in terms of profitability just as some of the traditional banks have stumbled. Are these firms the future of Brazilian banking?
-
The Brazilian government’s changes to the laws governing its tax-exempt debentures have allayed financial market fears that president Lula intends to rely on BNDES to fund billions spending on infrastructure, crowding out private-sector finance.
-
Chief executive Carlos Eduardo Guimarães says that he expects the bank’s return on equity to double to between 20% and 22% in the next two years.
-
Banco Inter reported return on equity of 8.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023 but is now targeting a return on equity of 30% by 2028, CFO Santiago Stel tells Euromoney.
-
Domestic companies launch banking-as-a-service models as the country's central bank creates space for new entrants.
-
A recent rule change means that Brazilian banks will be able to use tax credits related to provision expenses sooner – and the impact could be material.
-
Internal and external reforms are under way as the new president signals a break with the previous administration.
-
It is not hard to find short-term worries over global markets’ state of readiness for the US’s transition to one-day settlement in late May. But even if the UK, Europe and those Asian markets still using two-day settlement can adapt to the shift in the longer term, they will also face intense pressure to lessen their dislocation from the US cycle by copying its move. Many also fear the ultimate end-game of same-day or even instant settlement.
-
Brazil’s banks have been talking a good game about capturing the outperformance of smaller, privately held companies in the country. Now a new banking advisory firm – packed with senior bankers – has made this segment its entire business strategy.
-
New entrants spur breadth and depth in the country’s capital markets.
-
A team of once-public sector bankers and officials is launching a new private equity fund that aims to identify ‘climate winners’ from the transition to a decarbonized economy. It has identified key industries but its central thesis is regulation.
-
The cost to the government of supporting the Mexican oil firm’s debt could rise to 1.5% of GDP in 2025. Could it walk away?
-
BR Partners grew steadily up until its successful IPO in 2021. However, tougher markets since that float have led to a period of relative consolidation. Will 2024 see a resumption of chief executive Ricardo Lacerda’s ambitious empire building?
-
The appointment of Marcelo Noronha as chief executive of Bradesco should probably have taken place five years ago. Is he still the right man for the job?
-
The bank must broaden its horizons if performance is to improve.
-
The sovereign pushed hard on its first use-of-proceeds green bond, but a sustainability-linked bond was not seen as a practical option for now.
-
Markets jump on the news that Javier Milei will be Argentina’s next president. A large devaluation is needed, but that leads to the risk of deposit flight.
-
Sector shows strong profit performance in the third quarter as asset quality improves.
-
As Citi presses on with its consumer-banking exits around the world, the job of defining what its international network now represents falls to its newly appointed head of international, Ernesto Torres Cantú.
-
Private banking clients have begun exploring alternative asset allocation strategies in Brazil. Euromoney talks to the founders of a startup that is tapping into this demand with a strategy focused on special situations.
-
High interest-rate regulations skew credit portfolio allocation and stifle new entrants to the sector, but the new president may have other challenges to solve first.
-
Latin America has been a relative backwater for private equity firms. Could better equity market conditions in the region drive an uptick in activity?
-
Record sustainable finance issuance will still only get you so far.
-
Digital banks look to online games to help drive retention.
-
It is rare that a popular, fast-growing and secure financial product is put at risk, but could the boom in FGTS loans in Brazil be under existential threat?
-
If you owe the IMF $3.6 billion, it’s your problem. But if you owe the IMF $36 billion, it is their problem.
-
Deutsche Bank’s Mexico team says the country is vital for Latin American credibility and that nearshoring will drive FDI in the coming decade.
-
Latin American issuance was solid, if unspectacular in the first half of this year. However, with politics, sticker price resistance and refinancing needs skewed to 2024, the next half may be more difficult.
-
Patricio Sepúlveda, head of Chile’s public debt office, discusses how programmatic issuance demonstrates commitment to sustainability-linked bond goals and can make these structures more cost effective.
-
The frontrunner in the Argentine presidential election campaign has said he wants to abolish the peso and replace it with the US dollar. Is it blue-sky thinking or just greenback dreaming?
-
Private bankers are eyeing PE and venture capital investments as digital platforms emerge in Brazil, but personal advisory remains critical.
-
The Brazilian bank is focused on new initiatives aimed at boosting active-user rates, including a new global app and buy-now-pay-later product.
-
Second-quarter results from Brazil’s largest banks, published over the first half of August, revealed a bounce in financial performance. But it may be premature to dismiss further asset-quality deterioration down the line.
-
Trade and currency wars have boosted Brazil’s agribusiness sector in the past couple of years. Higher prices for soft commodities have, however, accelerated a trend that has been noticeable for many years: the country’s inward focus.
-
-
The country’s economy was already weak before a serious drought hit. Now it is broke, and the question in Buenos Aires isn’t whether finance minister Sergio Massa can muddle through to the presidential election at the end of October, it is whether he can make it to the primaries in August before a full-blown financial crisis.
-
The evolution of Brazil’s central bank payments programme could be good news for banks.
-
UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse will further reduce the number of large international private banks in Brazil. Julius Baer has been quick to take advantage of this.
-
The country’s banking system seems as solid as ever, but its banks are seeing an uptick in delinquencies that could spin out of control.
-
The echoes of 2014 have been loud in Brazil’s private banking industry over the past 12 months. A precipitous fall in interest rates – followed by a meteoric rise – has left the market completely the same but also very different.
-
When the news broke that Argentina was thinking of merging its currency with that of its neighbour, Brazil, my immediate question was: which Argentine peso?
-
The bank’s chief financial officer says Inter is moving into an expansion phase, following an ambitious and aspirational ‘north star’.
-
-
The bank’s new head must withstand political pressure to extend subsidized credit and lower underwriting standards.
-
A persuasive case can be made for nearshoring, but so far in Latin America there has been little direct evidence that it is happening. In Mexico, things are about to change.
-
Nearshoring has been seen to drive credit growth among the country’s smaller regional banks.
-
The region’s advantage is likely to be short-lived and could fade by 2024, according to JPMorgan's private bank head.
-
Local flows to fixed income and equity redemptions limit ECM liquidity.
-
Restrictions on redundancies force out larger banks in Mexico from bidding for business.
-
Uruguay reignites the debate on transition finance with its sovereign sustainability-linked bond.
-
The bank is focusing on organic growth by acquiring retail clients and launching a private bank.
-
Proactive risk tightening in 2021 sees surging return on equity as scale brings operational leverage.
-
The market reaction to the third-quarter results from Brazil’s second-largest private bank has revealed investor sensitivity to banks’ deteriorating asset quality.
-
Bank’s ESG head urges competitors and regulators to respond more quickly to emissions accounting challenge.
-
While fintechs have been thriving in Brazil and throughout Latin America, the region’s local stock exchanges have failed to attract IPOs.