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Antonio Acosta, Banco del Pichincha: confident about Latin America |
Antonio Acosta, the co-president of Banco del Pichincha, the largest bank in Ecuador, is confident 2009 will be a good year for the bank. He tells Euromoney why he is so positive about prospects.
How has your bank fared through the financial crisis?
The bank has done well. The bank’s assets are safe and diversified because it works with all the segments of the economy and so in terms of profitability the impact has been minimal. Also last year the bank had some extraordinary profits from the sale of its subsidiary in Colombia.
How are you managing your liquidity needs?
Fortunately, we had a very small dependence on foreign loans and issues on the capital markets when the international crisis hit hard. The funding from Banco Pichincha basically comes from a well-diversified base of deposits. Deposits showed a decline at the beginning of the year but now they have almost recovered to the level of the end of last year. We also had to collect some of our loan portfolio but now the situation is almost normal for us again.