Implications of the globalization of the banking sector: the Latin American experience

Joe Peek and Eric Rosengren ()

New England Economic Review, 2000, issue Sep, 45-62

Abstract: Foreign entry into domestic banking markets remains a contentious issue. Whether privatizing a state bank in Brazil or selling a failed bank in Japan, the proposed sale of a large domestic financial institution, possibly to a foreign acquirer, frequently results in a major controversy. Many Asian countries have yet to experience major foreign penetration of domestic banking markets, while Latin American countries have privatized many of their banks and have encouraged foreign banks to enter their domestic markets. ; Because many Latin American countries opened their markets during the 1990s, and because they have experienced exchange rate and banking crises as well as severe fluctuations in their macroeconomies over this period, Latin American countries provide a good laboratory for understanding the effects of foreign bank penetration. The authors examine the legal and economic conditions that have affected foreign bank penetration in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico and review how foreign banks have reacted to recent crises affecting these countries. They find that foreign banks viewed the economic problems as providing opportunities to expand, either by acquisition or by internal growth of existing subsidiaries. The same was not true for offshore lending, however.

Keywords: Banks and banking, International; Latin America; Argentina; Mexico; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (103)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer2000/neer500c.htm (text/html)
http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer2000/neer500c.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Implications of the globalization of the banking sector: the Latin American experience (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:2000:i:sep:p:45-62

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in New England Economic Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Spozio ().