“There is a big revolution going on in Central America,” says Dr Luis Liberman, CEO of Banco Interfin, the largest non-state owned bank in Costa Rica. But the revolution that Dr Liberman refers to does not involve the masses taking to the streets to protest against dictatorships, as happened in the late 1970s and 1980s in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. The kind of upheaval that takes place in today’s Central America consists of banking consolidation, international investment and implementation of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
“The international banks are looking at Central America intensively and are talking to local banks about acquisitions, as are Central American banking groups that are trying to expand,” says Dr Liberman.
