40
BUSINESS AREAS 1Q09
Mexico
pay less, as they get an immediate reduction on the
interest rate. To date, 480,000 customers have
benefitted from this campaign.
Meanwhile, Banca Hipotecaria has placed a total of
9,388 home-buyer mortgages during the first months of
the year, financing 17,026 housing units with bridging
loans. This has given the bank a significant rise of 450
basis points in its market share to February (33.7%)
measured by the value of newly originated business.
The SMEs & Government Banking unit has arranged
the collection on the tax campaign for the central and
municipal governments nationwide. This has increased
its customer-fund gathering in current accounts by 44%.
Finally, in Corporate & Investment Banking the most
significant transaction in the first quarter of 2009, was
a rights issue (“Certificados bursátiles”) for a bottling
company amounting to a total of 1,420 million pesos.
Pensions and Insurance
During the first quarter of 2009, the pensions and
insurance business in Mexico generated a net
attributable profit of €53m. This was 39.9% higher
than in the same period of the previous year.
The pension business (operated by Afore Bancomer)
was hit by the negative performance of the Mexican
financial markets during these first three months of
2009. This impacted on the financial earnings in the
sector, the assets under management and the growth of
fee income. All these elements constrained Afore
Bancomer’s net attributable profit, but its excellent sales
drive and the impact of its austerity regime on costs
have managed to keep it at practically the same level as
in the first quarter of 2008. At €8m, its attributable
profit has gone down 1.1%.
First-quarter performance in the insurance business was
positive, thanks to the efforts made by the companies in
marketing and sales, which enabled them to offset the
slowdown in growth on products linked to banking
activities. This boosted sales on non-bancassurance lines
and savings products. This has fed into the premium
revenues, with €211m of business written in the
quarter, increasing 15.4% year on year. The attributable
profit for all three Group companies in this unit
(Seguros Bancomer, Pensiones Bancomer and Preventis)
stood at €45m, increasing 51.4% year on year).
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