By Nathaniel Parish Flannery, Contributor

Standing in front of a white panel that said, “BBVA Bancomer Plan de Inversion,” BBVA‘s Executive Chairman, Francisco Gonzalez, and Mexico‘s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced that the Spanish bank would invest $3.5 billion in Mexico by 2016. After writing off losses on assets tied to the Spanish housing market, BBVA earned €1.6 billion in 2012, a 44 percent drop from its 2011 results. The investment in Mexico highlights the bank’s shift of attention towards Latin America. In 2012 the bank earned net interest income of €3 billion in Spain and €6.6 billion in Latin America (about half of which came from Mexico.) Mr. Gonzalez said that the move counts as “one of the biggest investments carried out by a private company in Mexico.”  BBVA is already Mexico‘s largest bank by assets. Mexico‘s president explained that Mexico “has a solid and robust  financial system that contrasts, without a doubt, with those [systems] in other parts of the world.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest