Despite a generally positive outlook, foreign exchange risks remain.
Forecasts from the US Federal Reserve signaling just one modest cut this year will have far-reaching implications on how US-headquartered corporations with Latin American subsidiaries manage their liquidity flows.
Although nearshoring has been a boon for Mexico, and the outlook is generally positive, risks in foreign exchange and commodity markets persist and require companies to partner with banks having regional expertise and cash management solutions tailored to the Latin American market.
Bank of America, the winner of the Best Bank for Transaction Banking and Best Bank for Collections awards, has been present in Latin America for 78 years. Today, corporates can better manage their cash via the CashPro working capital management platform. CashPro Search lets corporates search for a transaction or payment across multiple data repositories, while CashPro Insights centralizes four key data elements into one dashboard with proactive recommendations. Clients in Brazil and Mexico can optimize working capital with Intelligent Receivables—powered by artificial intelligence—a collections tool and invoice matching tool that achieves straight-through processing metrics into the 80-90 percentile range.
“Multinational clients are increasingly asking for digital cash management solutions with embedded services such as BNPL [a buy now, pay later platform] and payments, and APIs [application programming interfaces] have been instrumental in meeting these demands,” states Mencía Bobo, head of Global Transaction Banking at Santander. The bank takes three awards this year: Best Bank for Cash Management, Best Corporate Cross-Border Payments Solution, and Best Bank for Payments. “By enabling a seamless communication exchange, APIs have transformed how we integrate with our clients’ systems and new business models based on ecosystems by simplifying the integration of different technology stacks. Thanks to APIs, we can provide a faster, more efficient way to exchange information and data and can better integrate new solutions from third parties, such as software providers, ERP [enterprise resource planning systems], and fintechs.”
From a business view, she says APIs have been key to generating new revenue streams such as business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) models offerings. APIs have facilitated process automation and personalized data exchange, crucial for making quick, informed decisions about incoming and outgoing payments.
“By building digital ecosystems together with their B2B distribution partners, large corporates in LatAm are transforming the way they reach and engage with their end customers, who are often small mom-and-pop stores that remain unbanked,” Bobo continues. “By embedding in their loyalty apps key financial products, such as merchant acquisition, digital accounts, and BNPL, B2B2C models enable the financial inclusion of small merchants into the system. From our experience with leading consumer goods corporates, B2B2C models unlock profitable growth for all value chain members, improve sales volume and conversion, and generate greater loyalty and client retention.”
Latin American firms are also increasingly looking to banking partners for both liquidity provision and treasury services. Citi, our Best Bank for Long-Term Liquidity Management, offers cash concentration and pooling that lets clients optimize idle cash across subsidiaries for better returns. The Americas Trade and Investment Act (Americas Act), introduced in the US Congress in March 2024, could open the way for some Latin American countries to join the US-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement. It would expand US concessional lending and offer up to $70 billion in loans and grants to support the nearshoring of production. Although the bill will struggle to gain legislators’ attention in an election year, it is hoped it will usher in a new era of inter-American cooperation and economic resilience and help Latin America to further weather global choppy headwinds.
| Latin America | |
|---|---|
| Best Bank for Transaction Banking* | Bank of America |
| Best Bank for Cash Management | Santander |
| Best Corporate Cross-Border Payments Solution* | Santander |
| Best Bank for Payments | Santander |
| Best Bank for Collections | Bank of America |
| Best Bank for Long-Term Liquidity Management | Citi |
