A New Bank Brand in Mexico Seeks to 'Get It Right' Jude Webber - BeyondBrics
go to original January 18, 2015

Bye-bye “primitive” internet banking. Hello smart banking straight from your smartphone. That, at least, is the pitch from Mexico’s Grupo Azteca, part of businessman Ricardo Salinas’s finance, retail and TV empire.

During the first half of this year, the group plans to launch “Acertumbank” – a new brand (the group has just the one banking licence, for its Banco Azteca aimed at lower-income customers). The name is a play on the Spanish verb “acertar”, which means to “get it right”. It has just hired seasoned banker Alejandro Valenzuela, who was ousted as CEO of Banorte in November and is a former senior Bank of Mexico and finance ministry official, to run all of the group’s financial businesses.

Acertumbank’s target demographic is decidedly different from that of Azteca, but the group does not expect the snob factor to hobble its appeal (few well-heeled Mexicans would like to be seen in a Banco Azteca, where quick micro loans are a speciality, or in one of the yellow-logoed Elektra stores which sell electrical appliances to the poor).

Luis Niño de Rivera, whom Mr Valenzuela replaces, steered Azteca’s expansion in Mexico, Central and South America, and now becomes vice-president of the Azteca board. He told Beyondbrics the service would trump snobbery.

Read the rest at BeyondBrics

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