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| Credicorp’s chief operating officer Walter Bayly |
Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) has successfully navigated the slowdown in its domestic economy this year and is now well placed to become the most profitable bank in the region in 2018.
In the first half of this year, Peru suffered a sharp slowdown after a severe El Niño weather system disrupted production and a corruption scandal caused the delay of infrastructure projects.
The country’s banks saw a slowing in credit demand in the first half of the year, but are already showing a rebound – aided by an increase in public investment, which the central bank said grew by 24.2% in September 2017 when compared with the same month in 2016.
The early recovery is already visible in the results, announced in November, of the country’s leading private sector bank BCP. The bank accounts for nearly 37% of total deposits and although the bank’s third-quarter loan growth was still soft – up by only 0.9% year-on-year – its better-than-expected asset quality led to a 5% increase in quarter-on-quarter pre-tax earnings.
And with Goldman Sachs forecasting that Peru will top the regional growth table next year, with 4.2%
