Faced with an increasing irruption of technology companies in financial services and products, Banorte it is said ready to compete against these.
“Tech companies welcome. We are also a technology company that does banking, and we have all the instruments to compete, ”said Marcos Ramírez Miguel, general director of the Mexican financial group.
In videoconference on the occasion of the presentation of results for the third quarter of 2021, the director of Banorte mentioned that today everyone talks about fintech, big tech and others that are breaking into the financial sector, which, he said, is fine.
“We are going to do the same and better. We have the knowledge of the market, the knowledge of the instruments, the knowledge of the apps, and they will see us competing against them ”, he underlined.
He stressed that the bank has five branches of action, which are: branches, ATMs, the call center, correspondents and digital banking.
In fact, he commented that the app Banorte -which was recently updated- is one of the best on the market.
Joint work for the benefit of the client
Although he recognized that the technological giants have all the transactionality, the director of Banorte He said that the future of banks is not to disappear, but that they will be complemented with all that type of information.
Some may use digital channels and information, but they are not banks, nor do they have the access or regulation to be banks ”, he pointed out.
He stressed that the more the customer is known, the better they can be offered a personalized service, so what will end up happening is that, more than a personal banking segment, the specific customer will be discussed.
“We are going to talk about the personalized segment, what each client needs, is it fairer, it’s better and that is where the future goes,” he said.
He added: “What I see are many associations and complements between brands and technology, and banks also own a lot of technology; I don’t leave them behind ”.
Marcos Ramírez stressed that the world of technology will be exciting in the future, and the bank will be there. “We are prepared for that evolution, to go to what we call segment one.”
In fact, Banorte has already made alliances with some of these technology companies such as Google and Rappi.
“It already happened, it lasted”
On another topic, the CEO of Banorte considered that the harshness of the crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic is over, and now the bank is ready to face 2022.
He mentioned that there is already a frank recovery, which is seen in the fact that clients who had problems paying their loans in the first months of the pandemic have already resumed their commitments; in addition to the fact that in the “pipeline” there are several large projects to finance.
Profit showed slight decrease in the third quarter
In the third quarter of 2021, Banorte recorded a profit of 8,874 million pesos, a slight decrease of 0.4% compared to the same period in 2020, when it obtained 8,906 million.
This result, explained Marcos Ramírez, was due to a lower margin for rates, but also to the impact on the insurance business due to policies related to Covid-19.
However, in the accumulated January-September 2021, the benefit was 25,987 million pesos, 6% more than the 24,542 million of the same period last year.
Regarding the loan portfolio, the institution reported that it grew 2% in its annual comparison, to reach 813,247 million pesos.
See consolidation in Afores due to commission cap
On the other hand, and in view of the modifications that are foreseen for the calculation of the ceiling of the commissions charged by the Retirement Fund Administrators (Afore), Banorte foresees that there may be consolidations, since this could affect the smaller ones.
Fernando Solís, general director of product development, said that rather than bankrupt some, the most likely is that the portfolios will be sold, which, however, would not affect the assets of the people, since there is a very clear separation between the Afores and the Siefores.
“We, who are an important Afore, have a scale advantage that allows us to deal with these issues from a relatively strong position,” he said.
He added: “Yes, there will probably be a consolidation, which is the same as we have seen in more mature markets.”
kg
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx