Latin America’s banks have not only been growing in their home markets, consolidating their competitive positions and improving their performance, but their presence across the whole of Latin America has also been increasing, as they seek to serve clients trading across the region and aim to reach a broader base of retail customers. While regional networks were traditionally the domain of large international banks, local lenders are becoming increasingly ambitious with their expansion strategies, which will undoubtedly lead to more competition in the Latin American markets.
The Banker sought to measure this trend of cross-border expansion into Latin America and has compared various figures and ratios related to banks’ foreign subsidiaries across the region – irrespective of where the bank is headquartered, be it North America, Europe, Asia or Latin America. So, for example, looking at Brazil, Santander and HSBC’s operations would be incorporated into the statistics but those of Brazilian groups Itaú Unibanco and Bradesco would not. Equally, in Argentina, Itaú's subsidiary would be included but Buenos Aires-based Banco Galicia would not.