The quest to find the best-guarded bank in Central America begins in Costa Rica. Raids on branches have become a problem in this traditionally peaceful, unarmed society. Crédito Agrícola de Cartago has taken on a nervous-looking youth with a rifle. Few such worries at the central bank, where the security guard is armed only with a pistol and is too busy chatting with the shoe-shiners to notice me sneaking past.
Guatemalan bank security guards put their Costa Rican brethren to shame. Banco Industrial's drive-through branch in the centre of Guatemala City sports two edgy guards armed with semi-automatic rifles.
The banking fraternity in Guatemala City may be obsessed with security but it doesn't seem too concerned about a law that could put a good half of the country's banks out of business. The government wants all banks to have at least 100 million quetzales ($13.8 million) in capital - a level only 11 out of 34 banks now reach. Lloyds and Citibank, the only two foreign banks with a full operation in the country, are among those that fail to make the grade.
But if Nigel Hubbard, manager of the Lloyds operation in Guatemala, is worried about having to go cap in hand to Peter Ellwood to keep such a central part of the ruthlessly focused Lloyds empire afloat, he doesn't show it.