Can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?

Last year our Mexico office became the hub for Latin America, resulting in some heavy lifting from my team both from a compliance perspective and a legal perspective.

From a compliance perspective, we had to confirm that the Mexican entity was able to do all actions required by the Latin American business and create the guidelines that the team needs to follow for doing business in the region. From a legal perspective, we had to consolidate our external network of external counsel in the region and leverage them in an efficient way. We had an important learning curve getting to know the essentials of the new markets and regulations to be able to support the business across the region.

Which recent political, economic or regulatory changes have impacted the company and the team the most?

I would consider the series of changes this government has made to the mandatory retirement system (AFORES regulation), a materially regulatory event. The main reform was the AFORES Reform in late 2020, but even before the AFORES Reform the regulators implemented initiatives that improved our retirement system. It is important to mention that these changes have been the most significant since the establishment of the AFORES system and we are confident that these changes will have an incredibly positive impact on the industry, the investment ecosystem, and Mexicans in general.

In a changing financial landscape, how does the company remain competitive against new phenomena such as fintech and blockchain, and how does the legal team assist with this?

Fintech and blockchain, or the evolution of the latter, will be essential tools for the finance industry in the future. From my perspective, in Mexico, they will play a key role in financial inclusion and achieving a much-expected maturity of the financial system. Leveraging such tools will be key for the success of the traditional financial industry, and there must be a competitive product behind the technology. I expect that we will see a high growth of FinTech’s and Blockchain followed by a stabilisation period were only the companies that have competitive products and good leverage of technology will remain.

Legal and compliance functions will become key stakeholders in the implementation of recent technologies, facing the challenges of being up to date in a fast paced regulatory and business ecosystem. The ones that are successful in such challenge will become a guide for companies in the adoption of modern technologies, the ones that not, will become roadblocks.