BAC San José to go Downmarket
Costa Rica's private bank, BAC San José, will start going downmarket in the second half of this year, Gerardo Corrales, executive VP of financial group Grupo Financiero BAC San José, told BNamericas.

Today 60% of BAC San José's client base are individuals and the remainder are corporate clients.

The bank has traditionally served individuals in the two highest income groups, the so-called A and B groups, earning US$500 or more a month, above the average for a country with per capita income of US$4,670, according to the World Bank (WB).

"We have been working on establishing procedures, back office structures and credit scoring models to launch products for income groups C and D, namely, individuals who earn much less than the As and Bs, with an average of about US$300 a month. We're planning to offer them consumer loans and credit cards," Corrales said.

On the corporate side, BAC San José has been catering to large and medium-sized companies and corporations, classified as A and B, but will now extend its service to SMEs.

"Our strategy is to extend our services to companies in the C and D [categories] as long as they are part of the value chain of A and B category companies. So if a company provides goods to a large or medium-sized company, it immediately becomes a target for us because it's an important player within the value chain of a large corporate client," the executive said.

BAC San José's new initiative is part of a business strategy launched by GE's consumer finance unit, which last year acquired 49.99% of BAC International Bank, BAC San José's holding company.

At end-March this year, Banco BAC San José ranked sixth in the local banking system with a 6.1% asset market share, according to financial sector regulator Sugef.

The bank reported ¢361billion colones (US$704 million) in assets and ¢212 billion colones in performing loans respectively as of March 31.

Banco BAC San José was created in 1968 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of financial group Corporación Tenedora BAC San José, known as Grupo Financiero BAC San José. The group also owns stock brokerage BAC San José Puesto de Bolsa, investment funds company BAC San José SFI, leasing company BAC San José Leasing, pension fund manager Confía San José Pensiones and offshore bank BAC Bahamas.

Grupo Financiero BAC San José forms part of Panama-based financial group BAC International Bank.