As the US financial system burned on September 15, Mexican markets took a hit but its own financial system held strong. Banking experts say that aside from some psychological reverberations, the nation’s banks, having weathered and learned from the so-called Tequila Crisis of 1994–95, are strong enough to withstand the storm.
On the one hand, the major players in Mexico are foreign: Banamex, a subsidiary of New York-based Citibank, Spain’s BBVA Bancomer and Santander, along with the UK’s HSBC. Mexico’s only locally owned bank, Banorte, is Mexico’s fifth largest. On the other hand, despite being mostly foreign-owned, Mexico’s institutions are not overexposed on subprime mortgage securities as US banks are, and neither are they involved with Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy that day.
