BNP Panama Sale Expected in H1

BNP Paribas will this year exit Panama through the sale of its bank there, a senior official at the French institution confirms. “We are in the process of closing the sale of the branch,” says the banker. “We hope [it will be sold] in the first half of the year,” he adds. BNP was late last year rumored to be selling down a significant loan portfolio in the country, but the official says that the books involved in the sale are not large. Most of the clients were apparently mid-market and domestic. The decision is related to the OECD’s inclusion of Panama on a grey list of countries that have not fully implemented global tax standards.