Santiago Fittipaldi

Difficult economic conditions didn’t keep Latin America’s best banks from growing in 2018. Strategic focus is on digitization and outreach to the unbanked.

With the civil war over, Colombia can focus on growing its economy.

Global Finance unveils its 25th annual best banks in the world list. The winners have outperformed their peers and provide top-notch service to clients in a challenging environment. 

Global Finance discusses goals, strategy, and prospects with Banco Agrícola's CFO Ana Beatriz Marin Restrepo.

Adversity builds resilience: Inured to the region’s perennial issues, Latin American banks keep finding a way to prosper.

Enrique Alvarez, head of Strategy at Santander, talks about the impact of digitization, mobile banking and other groundbreaking technologies being put to work in Latin America.

Global Finance sat down with the CEO of Produbanco to discuss the mounting challenges for Ecuadorian banking.

Global Finance grades the world’s central bank governors on how well they have performed in the past year.

In our October issue, Global Finance presents its latest annual grading of the world's central bank governors. Here, we present the nine who received an "A" grade in 2017: those from Australia, Honduras, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Paraguay, Russia, Taiwan and the United States. 

Development banks vie with their commercial counterparts to support the growth of regional economies.

Facing domestic vulnerabilities and external shocks, Latin American banks adapt to a changing environment

Argentina
The appointment of Alfonso Prat-Gay as Argentina’s new Finance minister was a clear sign to international investors that president Mauricio Macri, sworn in December 10, was serious about unraveling the populist policies of the previous government.

Grassroots anti-corruption movement promises new era of transparency.

Global Finance’s annual evaluation of the work of the world’s central bankers found some stellar performances, and some dismal ones. The toughest challenge for many: propping up falling prices.

BRAZIL     Brazilian mining giant Vale walked away from Xstrata acquisition talks. Vale, the Brazilian mining giant formerly known as CVRD, decided to walk away from its proposed $90 billion acquisition of Swiss miner Xstrata after both sides failed ...

PERU     Peru's president Alan Garcia: Fiscal policies led to upgrade. While analysts debated whether Brazil or Panama would win the race to become the next Latin American investment-grade-rated country, Peru beat both countries to the finish line. Citing ...

Annual Survey The biggest banks in the world have performed like well-oiled money-creating machines this year, generating billions of dollars of profits on a quarterly basis. The risks to the global economy from rising oil prices and interest rates, however, ...

In the 12th annual Global Finance survey of the world’s best emerging market banks, we honor those banks that consistently provide excellent service and security in often-tumultuous markets. In the dynamic world of emerging market banking, the past year has ...

Brazil Brazil’s central bank president Henrique Meirelles The Brazilian government may have put itself in a Catch-22 situation, as it fights inflation through interest rate hikes but chills domestic demand and cools economic growth prospects. While Brazil’s hyperinflation of the ...

Venezuela Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has few friends left these days, as his moves to silence opponents have raised eyebrows in the international community. Yet, with Venezuela still a leading oil producer, Chávez is using the oil card in his ...

Latin America US President George W. Bush may have only recently shunted social security reform to the top of his to-do list but in Latin America the issue has been on the agenda since the 1980s, when Chile moved to ...

Brazil Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed into law an overhaul of Brazil’s 60-year-old bankruptcy code in February, ending a decade of bureaucratic and legislative hurdles. Finance minister Antonio Palocci says the ...

Brazil Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is feeling the heat from political opponents, as his ruling coalition begins to unravel. The decision by the PMDB Party to leave the government last December dealt a severe blow to the ...

Argentina Among international bondholders, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has made few friends recently. After all, Kirchner has asked bondholders to take a 70% loss on their Argentine holdings and has turned a deaf ear to their pleas for a less ...

Latin America The US dollar may once have been the currency of choice for Latin American debt issuers eager to fill their coffers with the hard currency. But with the greenback turning soft, the region's issuers are beginning to issue ...

Spain When BSCH, Spain’s largest bank, set out on a banking sector acquisition spree throughout Latin America a few years ago, many regarded its chairman, Emilio Botin, as a modern-day ‘conquistador.’ Today, Botin rules over BSCH from Ciudad Grupo Santander, ...

Argentina When Argentina unveils its Museum of Foreign Debt in March, organizers are not aiming for busloads of camera-toting tourists. Instead, they hope it will help Argentines grasp how it is that their country has been in a perennial headlock ...

Cool Hand Lula He may be frustrating his more radical colleagues, but Brazil’s President Lula is achieving remarkable success with his delicate balancing act. Each of the three times Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva ran for president, his leftist platform ...

The Americas Anyone who has called a US bank’s call center recently has heard the ever-popular command of “Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish.” It seems banks have finally discovered the US Hispanic market. The 40 million Hispanics ...

UNITED KINGDOM The IFC refutes claims that its review of environmental and social safeguard policies constitutes a watering down of current standards and that the consultation process is “deeply flawed.” In an effort to make its current safeguard policies, which ...

NORTH AMERICA AIRLINES JETBLUE AIRWAYS CEO and Director: David Neeleman After gaining passenger loyalty in the US with its goal of “bringing humanity back to air travel,” JetBlue went international this year, adding flights to two Caribbean destinations. The airline ...

MEXICO Mexican President Vicente Fox, who won office on an anti-corruption platform in 2000, got a pat on the back from the OECD on his administration’s efforts for greater transparency.With corruption an endemic problem, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers estimates Mexico loses some $8.5 ...

BRAZIL Investor confidence in Brazil continues to grow, as witnessed by the sovereign’s successful return to international capital markets on October 6 with a $1 billion 15-year global bond is-sue via JPMorgan and Citigroup. The deal, priced at 97.78 with ...

THE WORLD’S BEST GLOBAL BANKS A growing global economy made it some-what easier to be a banker in the past 12 months, as credit risks generally de-clined and de-mand for bank-ing services was brisk. The skills of the world’s bankers ...

Latin America Two hundred years after Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar proposed creating a League of South American Republics, some Latins are calling for the establishment of a political and economic union to rival the EU. Some have even begun ...

Brazil After months of market talk indicating that a marked improvement in Brazilian fundamentals would lead to an upgrade in its sovereign ratings, Moody’s took the first step and upped the country’s long-term foreign currency debt to B1 from B2 ...

As talks between Argentina’s government and its creditors have turned more contentious, corporations have found better ways to overcome their debt woes. For Argentina’s corporations these are frustrating times. Following the December 2001 Argentine peso devaluation and sovereign default, many ...

LATIN AMERICA/CHINA Amorim: “Opportunity will prevail” Latin American governments used to turn to the United States, their traditional trade and investment partner, for help in kick-starting their economies. However, the region has now set its sights on Beijing to seek ...

Botswana is betting on its financial sector to diversify the economy. Festus Mogae: The IFSC initiative is about creating jobs Since gaining independence from Britain in 1966, Botswana transformed itself from one of the world’s poorest countries into a middle-income ...

Brazil Brazil is doing battle with neighboring Argentina over what Brasilia feels are its Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) partner’s unfair trade barriers. The most recent row involves home appliances, the import of which Argentine authorities sought to restrict in ...

It may not be the “spectacle of growth” that President Lula promised, but Brazil’s economic recovery is becoming more robust and sustainable. Although recent economic data point to a gradual economic recovery in Brazil that began last year, some local ...

ARGENTINA When Argentine President Nestor Kirchner made a proposal, during last year’s IMF meetings in Dubai, to restructure $88 billion worth of defaulted sovereign debt, he was emphatic that the government would hold firm on an offer that asked bondholders ...

INDIA TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK For the first time since 1995-1996 the Indian government’s revenues exceeded its budget estimates, leading to unprecedented collections, according to figures released in May. Collections for fiscal 2003-2004 grew 18% over the preceding ...

Emerging markets are poised to post their strongest growth in 20 years. Global Finance has picked the banks in 73 emerging market countries and four regions that have best been able to help their clients benefit from the upturn. All ...

EMERGING MARKETS Enrique V. Iglesias The stars appear to have aligned in favor of the emerging markets. Strong growth, easing inflation, sustainable fiscal performance and improving creditworthiness are conspiring, according to WestLB, to give emerging markets their best economic prospects ...

New instruments, government enthusiasm and a growing market are driving Islamic finance toward the mainstream. When Malaysia first laid the groundwork for what has become a thriving Islamic finance sector, much of its focus was on the need to provide ...

BRAZIL Lula: Out in the cold? Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s unexpectedly pragmatic and market-friendly attitude helped endear him to financial market players in the year following his election. It seems that the honeymoon may now be over, ...

ARGENTINA Argentine consumers are celebrating their country’s recent economic recovery by going out and spending some hard-earned cash—or at least plastic. Visa, MasterCard and local credit card issuers, who saw credit and debit card sales take a 40% dive in ...

Turkey’s efforts to comply with EU accession demands appear to be paying off. Yet while the country is gaining praise for its hard work, some say they want to see more evidence that Ankara is walking the talk. In the ...

UNITED STATES/CHINA Global executives are losing faith in the US and shifting to China as a place for business growth.The US, once considered a bastion of stability, they say now appears too risky. The majority of respondents to the Economist ...