Turn on any television set or open any newspaper in Mexico these days and it does not take long to realise that banks are falling over themselves to lend money in almost every shape and form.
According to the Bank of Mexico, the country’s central bank, overall credit to the private sector is growing at 21 per cent a year in real terms, with credit for companies growing at 30 per cent and mortgages at 21 per cent. In all, bank lending to the private sector has doubled as a percentage of Mexico’s gross domestic product since 2003. “We now have a banking system that is contributing to economic growth,” Agustín Carstens, Mexico’s finance minister, told the FT in a recent interview.
