The Latin American Banking Federation – or Felaban as it is more commonly known – will present the XLVI Felaban Annual Meeting in Lima this November. With strong growth in the region, the association has much to consider
Felaban is a non-profit organisation, created in Mar del Plata, Argentina in 1965 by the banking associations and agencies of 19 Latin American countries. It will host the XLVI Felaban Anniual Meeting in November to promote and facilitate contact, understanding and direct relations among financial institutions in the region.
The assembly is Latin American’s largest and most prestigious international gathering of senior managers from banks and financial institutions throughout the region and attracts a large number of representatives from more than 50 countries. The event seeks to integrate financial systems with the aim of increasing competitiveness in Latin America, exchange views, initiate project development and provide an opportunity to close business deals between its participants. Another goal is also to attract top officials, institutions, and leaders of the Asian economies.
Assets in the bank
The past 12 months has shown Latin America to be economically strong, with growth prospects still highly positive. In spite of economic hardships registered in developed countries: the slowdown of the Chinese economy, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, the troubles faced by a number of European economies and the recovery of the US, Latin America continues to enjoy wide access to a variety of external financing sources at very reasonable costs.
These factors are linked to strong, prominent growth in the country, thanks to the high flow of FDI, the high level of consumerism in Latin American households, and a balanced level of fiscal accounts. Latin America seems to have learnt lessons from a difficult past and has chosen an adequate economical management scheme with fiscal discipline as the basis of their development; the region is now considered a secure investment destination.
Felaban gathers together over 500 banks and financial entities throughout the continent and its member countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. The assets from these countries add up to over $4bn, their deposits are over $1.8bn and their placements are over $1.9bn.
Latin integration
The company’s corporate objectives aim to promote and facilitate the contact, understanding and direct relationships between the financial entities in Latin America, irrespective of the internal political issues of each country, and to contribute to the coordination of criteria and to the unification of general banking and financial practices in Latin America. The organisation believes that to continue down the path of economic prosperity, the Latin American banking sector must continue to support the economy through a dynamic credit portfolio with financial solvency and adequate levels of liquidity.
Banking must continue to be an asset that will back the current economical regional development.
It’s within this context that Felaban and the Peruvian Bank Association, Asociación de Bancos del Perú (ASBANC), are organising the 46th assembly between November 17–20th at the Hotel Westin Libertador in Lima. The event is promoted as a great opportunity for international financial institutions (with approximately 1,500 from the Americas, Asia and Europe) to exchange ideas, shape integration efforts and do business. More than ever, the event sheds an optimistic light on complex global economical situations.
Felaban places cooperation in economic integration schemes high on its corporate policy agenda and the event aims to procure a greater access to financial services for populations with low incomes as a way to contribute to the reduction of poverty in Latin American countries.
Speakers of note
Among the most remarkable aspects of this years’ assembly are key note speeches by the American economist Nouriel Roubini, founder and CEO of Roubini Global Economics, well-known for having foreseen the world economic crisis of 2008, and from winner of the Nobel Literature Prize, Mario Vargas Llosa, whose intellectual influence has gone beyond Peruvian and Latin American borders, reaching the whole world. There will also be an open forum on the complex economic situation and future outlook of China, whose future performance is very closely linked to the development of world finance. It’s estimated there will be around 1,200 meetings in the venue, and around 26 stands exhibiting cutting-edge banking technologies, services and tools.
Felaban believes this year’s assembly in Lima can be translated by a single word: opportunity. The opportunity to do business in Peru – a country that throughout the last decade has shown a remarkable and sustained economic growth – has increased significantly and other regions in Latin America have opened up the possibility of fruitful exchange with approximately 1,500 representatives from all corners of the global finance world.
