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Mexico-based financial institution Banorte hopes that a deal with Comercial Mexicana, a retailer based in the same country, will build the bank's card base among consumers who lack bank accounts, a Banorte official said at the Cards & Payments Latin America conference in Miami this week. Some 50% of the retailer's 6 million customers do not have bank accounts, says Miguel Javier Huller, the bank's director general consumo, a position that gives him oversight of Banorte's retail lending products and merchant acquiring. Under a venture set to launch in either the fourth quarter of 2008 or the first quarter of 2009, the bank would begin offering payment cards and other financial products such as insurance in the retailer's more than 200 stores, most of which are located in Central Mexico. Banorte plans to keep its brand in the background as much as possible, he says, because consumer research conducted in advance of the deal showed consumers are more likely to trust retailers than banks, which are seen as bureaucratic and distant. "There's a perception among the unbanked that the retailer is familiar [and offers] one-stop shopping," he said. At least 70% of Comercial Mexican's customers pay cash, Huller says. The finding was based on surveys of 1,011 consumers. The deal with the retailer will last at least 10 years, Huller says.
