About

In 2000 Julio Reyes began his in-house career when he worked at PRIBANCO (Primer Banco Inmobiliario) as a loans officer for a few months. That year he was hired by the Interbank (Banco Intercontinental) liquidation board, where he assisted the senior lawyers to recover collateral loans. Part of Interbank assets were sold to BANPRO, which is when they offered him the legal adviser position. Initially he was part of the loans department because most of the legal services were provided by external law firms. By 2005 he was named legal coordinator for a team with just four lawyers. In 2009, the board of directors appointed him as a legal manager and created the legal department with 15 collaborators – and today the team is made up of 20 lawyers and six administrative assistants. Since joining Reyes has had the opportunity to participate in all of BANPRO’s transactions involving the acquiring of assets from other financial institutions such as Interbank, Banic, Caley Dagnall and some credit portfolio from BCN Nicaragua’s Central Bank. In March 2016, he was appointed as BANPRO’s board of director’s secretary. Since mid-2017 he has been helping BANPRO’s holding company with some legal issues, working towards 90% of BANPRO’s legal services provided in-house and only 10% by external lawyers. To complement this, in December 2017 he was certified by FIBA and FIU in Anti Money Laundering Certified Associate (AMCLA). In 2016 he worked with lawyers from different countries in Central America and the US in a due diligence process. Grupo Promerica made an offer to buy a bank operation in Central America: ‘This encouraged me to understand how to analyse and evaluate a company and what the important factors are to take into consideration’, says Reyes.