Awards for Excellence country winners: Bolivia

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Awards for Excellence country winners: Bolivia

Best bank: Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz

The Bolivian financial system has been facing dollar scarcity for more than a year now and the impact on the economy has been predictably negative, with Fitch recently downgrading the country to CCC from B-. It has been a long running crisis, with the strongest and best bank in the system Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz (BMSC), playing an important role in providing much-needed liquidity. One of the peaks of the liquidity crunch came in March 2023 and BMSC played a systemically important role by meeting dollar demand when it had evaporated from many other banks.

Crises always lead to a flight to quality and 2023 was no exception in Bolivia. BMSC saw further concentration of the market into its own hands, with both organic and inorganic growth.

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