In their rush to get into Latin America, international banks have tended to skip over the isthmus and head straight into the southern cone. "Until the Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanleys of this world start writing research about Central America we won't see many international investors coming in," suggests one local banker.
The region has undoubtedly suffered from the withdrawal of many foreign banks during the turbulent mid-1980s, banks that are only now starting to trickle back.
Foreign banks' flight may have damaged Central America's international profile, but it has also created opportunities for local Wrms. In 1985, Roberto Zamora, a Nicaraguan-American, was running Citibank's capital-markets operation in Venezuala: "All the major banks were selling out because of the crisis in the region but multinationals were continuing to do business - companies like Colgate, IBM and Goodyear," he recalls.
Zamora made a brave move. He left Citibank and set up his own firm, Lafise - Latin American Financial Services. "I set up in Miami to fulfil a very specific need in the region," he says. "Doing foreign-exchange transactions offshore." Lafise continues to do much of that work for multinationals present in Central America.