Thread: Another bank with a Mexican connection is moving to El Paso

Banamex USA plans Downtown branch
By Vic Kolenc \ El Paso Times
Posted: 01/27/2011 12:00:00 AM MST

Another bank with a Mexican connection is moving into El Paso.

Banamex USA, the U.S. banking arm of Banamex, one of Mexico's largest banks owned by U.S.-based Citigroup, plans to open a Downtown El Paso branch next month at 416 N. Stanton. Bank of America previously occupied that location until it moved to another Downtown building.

The new branch is part of the bank's expansion along the U.S.-Mexico border and other parts of the Southwestern U.S.

Banamex USA, with assets of $1.3 billion, specializes in banking between the U.S. and Mexico, and is opening branches at strategic points with lots of trade between the two countries, Salvador Villar, CEO and chairman of Banamex USA, said from his Los Angeles office.

"We have had customers in El Paso for quite some time," Villar said. "We have a lot of system integration with Banamex in Mexico. Customers can transfer (money) back and forth between the banks without fees."

Banamex also has a lot of experience doing loans in Mexico, Villar said.

New federal legislation, which President Barack Obama signed into law last summer, allows U.S. banks to open branches across state borders, and that is allowing Banamex to expand, Villar said.

Banamex isn't the first Mexican bank with El Paso connections. BBVA, a Spanish conglomerate that owns BBVA Compass banks in El Paso, also owns Bancomer in Mexico. Inter National Bank, with branches in El Paso, is owned by Banorte Financial Group, another Mexican banking company.

Carlos de Leon, a leader in La Red, or the network, an El Paso group formed last year to help business people who have moved to El Paso from Mexico, said it's important to have international banks like Banamex USA and the others operating branches in El Paso.

"They have a better understanding of our businesses" and can take into account properties and credit that Mexican business people have in Mexico, de Leon said. "A lot of people have accounts in Banamex and other Mexican banks."

Les Parker, co-founder and president of United Bank of El Paso Del Norte, a small El Paso bank with three branches, said Banamex may see an opportunity with the large number of immigrants from Juárez coming here in the past two years to escape the drug violence there.

"They have a familiar presence with Mexican nationals in the United States. That doesn't mean we won't compete against them, but they have a fertile market here, too," Parker said.

The fact a bank of Banamex's size is opening a branch here also speaks well for the El Paso market, Parker said.

Cindy Ramos-Davidson, CEO of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said having another bank enter this market gives local entrepreneurs another option to "fund and grow their businesses."

Villar said Banamex USA hopes to eventually have two or three branches in the El Paso-Las Cruces area.

Its Downtown El Paso branch will initially employ seven people and may grow to 10 employees, he said.

Banamex USA opened branches in McAllen, Houston and Nogales, Ariz., last year, and it has plans to add branches in Laredo, Brownsville, and San Antonio, Villar said. It expects to have 15 branches along the border by the end of the year, he said.

The bank now has 17 branches, most of them in California, Villar reported.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17209837

"Bank-O-Mex, Laundry Service!"

There needs to be a heavy tax or total ban on money transfers to non business accounts from USA to Mexico. Stop illegals from sending money home so their relatives can come here.

Pretty soon....no banks will be American oriented.

How the heck is the law being used that way? I thought it said US Banks couls open up banks across borders not that foreign banks could.

We need to stop these foreign banks from getting footholds in the US. Just makes it easier for US Money to go overseas. Personally I dislike the idea of even letting US Dollars move outside the US in any real quantity. Thats a problem we have hugely because of being the world trade currency which imo should be a gold standard. Also the US's huge defecit. I'd prefer if your sending money overseas its automatically converted right then into whatever currency of the sending country by a gold standard.