Javier Ortiz Batalla is proud that, in 2017 his bank was able to grant a 30-year loan to a young couple in Burzaco, a town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, to buy their first house. Like everyone else in Argentina’s banking sector, the CEO of public sector bank Banco Ciudad has grown accustomed to loans that would stretch to 20 years at most.
Traditionally, long tenures and mortgages have been the remit of lenders with a social and economic development mandate, such as Banco Ciudad. In a banking market characterised by high inflation and weary bank customers, it would be hard to overstate this achievement. With time, long-term lending in both retail and wholesale banking is set to become a regular part of bank life for private sector lenders too.
