Best bank:
Not awarded
Best debt house:
CSFB
Costa Rica's banking system remains dominated by the big state banks, which between them have more than three-quarters of the market. All of them are dreadful. There are smaller private banks that are not as bad, among them Banco San José - a part of Nicaragua-based Credomatic/Grupo Pellas- and Banco Cuscatlan, a subsidiary of El Salvador's Banco Cuscatlan. But tiny players such as these need to be better than not dreadful to win an award.
As for the standard default option, Citibank is not much of a player in Costa Rica, having recently sold its credit card business to Credomatic.
There are no such difficulties in awarding the best debt house award. CSFB has been bookrunner on all four of Costa Rica's last bond issues, including two in the past 12 months - a $250 million issue in July 2000, and another $250 million in February 2001.
CSFB also had a 79% share of trading in Costa Rican debt instruments in the first quarter of 2001.