At the beginning of this decade, Mexican banks were an extremely odd kind of financial institution. Whereas banks in most developed countries help people save money and then help individuals and businesses prosper by lending out that asset base in the form of loans, Mexican banks did not do much of either.

Only one in five Mexicans had a bank account and ever since the financial crash of 1995-95 banks hardly seemed to be making any fresh loans. Thankfully, that has begun to change of late, with banks extending mortgage and consumer loans at a rapid rate. They are also beginning to do much more business among less well-off customers. In addition, partly because of an active government funding programme, lending by microfinance institutions – virtually unknown in Mexico less than a decade ago – is also taking off quite rapidly.