What are the key projects that you and your team have recently been involved in?

Over the past two years, COVID has been a key issue for us primarily because of the diverging Covid strategies in each state. We have many branches across Mexico and so implementing the peculiar guidelines of each state, has been a challenge. The team has also been occupied by providing support to small businesses and enterprises to survive the pandemic.

Recently, I was the lawyer in charge of the purchase of Elavon Mexico and its entities. I was responsible for closing that transaction and buying 100% of its shares and entities in Mexico. This was successfully done, resulting in Baronex owning 51% of these entities while Santander Mexico owns 49%. The acquired business in Mexico will be handled by Santander merchant platform solutions, which is quite monumental for the Mexican market because usually in Mexico, acquired businesses are handled by the issuer’s banks. In my former job six years ago in Citibanamex, I participated in selling acquired business to EVO payment and now I get to participate in the reverse transaction.

What do you think are the biggest risks facing your industry at the moment? And how are you preparing your team to face those risks?

At the moment, in Mexico, there have been a few changes to the laws relating to the banking and financial system. We have a few initiatives to regulate the fees and commissions that we charge, the electronic system and the electoral reform. We may not be directly affected but it affects our clients in the corporate area. The other risks facing the industry were related to the pandemic, as I spoke about before.

In a changing financial landscape, how does the company remain competitive against new phenomenon such as FinTech and blockchain? And how is your legal team assisting with this?

We are focusing on modernising as much as we can, and at the moment have turned our recruitment efforts towards younger lawyers with experience in all the digital issues of blockchains and the like, which are a hugely discussed topic here. Banks are not permitted to issue or handle cryptocurrency but can work with those who do. In Mexico, there are two types of regulated FinTech, namely crowd funders and electronic payment fund institutions. We work with them now, as we have realised it is important for us to be partners of the new entities to improve and upgrade our digital products. We have an important relationship with Samsung where we intend to start issuing digital wallets and bank accounts with them, and these can be opened and accessed without visiting any of our physical branches. This is how we are growing into the digital era in partnership with FinTech’s and startups.