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| Awards for Excellence 2012 Regional Awards for Excellence 2012: Latin America All regions and countries |
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| Latin American winners by country Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Mexico Paraguay Peru Uruguay Venezuela |
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Best Bank: Santander Rio |
| Despite strong recent GDP growth (8% in 2011) the Argentine financial system is under increasing pressure. Since president Cristina Kirchner introduced new capital controls in October 2010, $3.5 billion in foreign-currency deposits – mostly US dollars – has left the banking system. Argentines, remembering the forced conversion of dollar deposits into pesos in 2002, and seeing a widening gap between the official and unofficial dollar conversion rates, are shunning the banks in favour of hard assets, such as real estate, or storage under the mattress. However, the outflows are unlikely to pose a systemic risk to the banking system as foreign-currency deposits account for about 20%, with the rest – peso deposits – totalling Ps484 billion ($107.8 billion). In this mixed operating environment Santander Río defended its position as the leading – and the best – private-sector bank. It is the market leader in loans to the private sector, deposits from the private sector and mutual funds, with market shares of 8.8%, | |