Bolivia’s varied and largely healthy banking system faces challenges from new legislation that sets lending rates and deposit floors. While bigger banks see opportunities in social housing loans, the rate curbs could have implications for microfinance lenders, and consequently for poorer citizens. Jane Monahan reports.
Bolivia is barely recognisable from the state it was in 20 years ago - it now has a budget surplus and a store of foreign currency, and there are even plans to make the country an export hub for electric power and natural gas. Hugh O'Shaughnessy met Bolivia's vice-president Álvaro García Linera to discuss the country's prospects.
Luis Arce, Bolivia's finance ministerSince president Evo Morales took office in Bolivia in 2006, political stability has gone hand-in-hand with a period of robust economic growth. The country's finance minister shares with The Banker how Bolivia has managed to protect itself from the worst of the global economic crisis and spells out plans for future expansion. Writer Jane Monahan
Jane Monahan in La Paz explores the paradox of radical Evo Morales boosting the county’s banking sector.If it was just officials in the 10-month old Bolivian government of President Evo Morales who expressed optimism about the landlocked country’s prospects, it might not be so convincing.