How a niche focus on Latin American clients has propelled IFB
By J.P. Faber
When Roberto Gatica joined IFB as their senior VP for international banking in 2015, he came with a perfect resume. He’d just finished a stint with Spanish private banking group Sabadell, managing a portfolio of 250 Latin American clients. Before that, he’d spent 10 years with Chile’s Banco de Crédito e Inversiones as head of their Corporate Banking Group. And before that, he’d spent a decade in Mexico working for Grupo Santander, First Union, and Citibank.
Like his current employer, International Finance Bank, “the advantage is that we have done this for 30 years,” says Gatica. That experience with Latin American culture, he says, has been critical. “Any bank can offer banking solutions, but not with the same closeness. We are a niche bank with a human touch.”
That sense of contact and interaction gives IFB its competitive edge, especially with Latin Americans who are more comfortable with personal relationships. The other advantage is that large U.S. banks have backed away from international clients because of the increased cost of regulatory compliance for foreign depositors. “In the banking community, the international client has become less important than it was in the past for the big players,” Gatica says. “They have become a [greater] risk.” He says large U.S. banks have shed most of their foreign clients, except for the most important ones.
IFB, meanwhile, specializes in taking on foreigners for loans and deposits. “The regulators know us, they know our portfolio, they know our clients. They have been reviewing us for 30 years. So, for us it’s easier,” says Gatica.
It also helps that many of the bank’s shareholders are Latin Americans, which helps banking relationships in their countries. David Schwartz, President & CEO of the Miami-based Financial & International Business Association (FIBA), says that, “IFB is a long-time member of FIBA and Roberto has been a well-respected banker in Miami for many years. His experience in the Latin American market goes a long way to explaining IFB’s success.
“For these and other reasons – such as capital flight from Latin America that pumped $80 million into IFB from Peru alone in 2021 – the bank has grown from $350 million in deposits in 2015 to just under one billion dollars today. It has also become a more balanced institution, moving from a community bank model where most loans were in residential real estate, to one with equal weight between commercial real estate, residential real estate, corporate, and commercial/industrial loans. “We look at our portfolio every day, and are very, very careful to maintain this balance,” says Gatica.
As for clientele, the preponderance of IFB’s deposits come from Venezuela, followed by Ecuador and Argentina. U.S. deposits come in at slightly more than 50 percent, but that figure is misleading, says Gatica, because the bank does business with numerous domestic LLCs that are, in fact, holding companies for foreign nationals.
While Gatica is not bullish for banking in general in 2023, he says the advent of left-leaning governments in Latin America bodes well for banks that can accommodate foreign citizens looking to protect their assets. Other trends also favor IFB, such as the growing shift of Mexican investments from Texas and Arizona to Florida. “You have the Brazilians coming, the Europeans coming, the Canadians coming – you name it,” Gatica says. “Right now, Argentina is the most active in terms of deposits, followed by Chile and then Peru. So for us it’s a big opportunity, because being international is part of our DNA.”
