About

Daniel Pérez-Umaña is the chief legal officer of BAC Credomatic (BAC), a financial group operating in 11 jurisdictions throughout Central America, Mexico, the US, the Caribbean and is currently Central America’s largest regional bank in terms of assets, deposits and net income, and the most relevant credit card issuer acquirer in terms of market share and sophistication. Pérez-Umaña joined BAC Credomatic shortly after the company had been purchased by Grupo Aval and before that the company had been jointly owned by Grupo Pellas from Nicaragua and by General Electric, and therefore legal issues were jointly overseen by general counsel of such shareholders. Due to this, when he was hired, the CEO assigned him the challenge of designing and developing a robust regional legal unit that was part of the company’s c-suite. When reflecting on this progress within the financial group, he says: ‘I remained by myself during the first couple of months and gradually started an organic growth and integration process that has led us this far. There are still many challenges ahead but we have accomplished a great deal. Being part of this process has undoubtedly helped me grow both as a legal professional and a business leader’. He is now in charge of leading BAC’s regional legal team and coordinating internal and external counsel for all BAC entities and directly represents BAC in all matters related to regional and global strategy. This includes capital market transactions, securitisations, M&A, syndicated loans, structured finance and many other contractual and corporate matters. He also acts as secretary to the board of directors of BAC’s main holding company and as legal advisor to the board of directors of several of its companies, including a number of banks. Furthermore, he is in charge of implementing internal policies and procedures for properly managing legal risk including regulatory compliance, corporate governance, development and implementation of new products and management of crises and litigation procedures. He is directly and indirectly in charge of around 90 in-house attorneys in seven jurisdictions. Prior to joining BAC in 2011, he was acknowledged as one of Costa Rica’s leading practitioners in financial law by Chambers Latin America and worked as a partner of Gómez-&-Galindo, representing financial institutions and other corporations in litigation, arbitration and diverse corporate transactions and regulatory issues. Pérez-Umaña was also previously a professor of private law and financial law at the University of Costa Rica and has been invited to speak in several universities and conferences, and at several international symposia organised by entities such as the Latin American Banking Federation, the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Peruvian Banking and Insurance Regulator (SBS).