Year: 2022

Winner: BBVA Mexico

Bigger is beautiful

Mexico’s banking sector continues to recover from the economic fallout of the pandemic, and
Grupo Financiero BBVA Mexico is leading the pack.

BBVA Mexico, the country’s biggest bank, consolidated its position with the industry’s
strongest profit growth in the first half of this year.

The lender is the winner of the LatinFinance award for Bank of the year – Mexico thanks to its
superior financial performance and achievements, including marking a milestone in sustainable
bonds.

BBVA Mexico, which is the biggest subsidiary of the Madrid-based BBVA Group and also the
largest non-Brazilian bank by assets in Latin America, registered a 49% jump in profit to 34.3
billion Mexican pesos in the first six months of 2022, compared to the same period of 2021.
The bank also bolstered its leadership in lending and deposits, which grew 13.5% and 11.5%
year-on-year respectively. It ended the period with a 24% share of the industry’s loans market
and a similar proportion of all deposits.

BBVA Mexico’s revenues grew around 18% in the first half of the year and asset quality
improved as the NPL ratio fell to 1.96% from 2.38% a year earlier. Its return on equity was
24.1% while return on assets amounted to 2.6%.

While deposits provided the bank with ample access to low-cost funding, it still made its mark
on the bond market this year. BBVA Mexico became the country’s first private bank to issue a
sustainable bond in the domestic market, selling 10 billion Mexican pesos of four-year notes in
June.

The bond sale was 1.3 times oversubscribed with orders coming from 35 local investors,
including brokerage firms, investment funds, development banks, commercial banks and
insurance companies. The proceeds went to fund loans to small and micro-enterprises and lowincome households.

BBVA Mexico was also structuring agent and lead manager in Coca-Cola Femsa’s social bond
market debut, which was also Latin America’s first ever non-financial corporate issue of this
type of debt.

At the same time, the bank has advanced with its digital transformation strategy and now has
17 million mobile clients and makes 74% of its sales through digital channels.