The Mexican banking arm of Citigroup Inc. expects to take market share from rivals this year after achieving 27% loan growth last year during the country's worst recession since the 1995 peso crisis, a top executive said Friday.
"We have been growing a lot faster than GDP and the banking industry. … We want to continue to grow more than the sector and continue to take market share," Luis Miguel Rodriguez, Banamex's director of financial analysis and planning, said at a press conference.
Banamex was one of the few large banks in Mexico that expanded its loan book aggressively during a year when loans by the banking industry overall grew 5%.
The bank's total loans rose 27%, to $27 billion at Dec. 31, led by growth in mortgage and commercial lending.
Asset quality was better than at its peers; Banamex's nonperforming loan ratio fell to 2%, from 3% in December 2008.
