No. 5 international banking: with more than 40 international banking agencies, only New York can vie with Miami as a center for Latin America banking—in trade finance, private wealth management or investment services - FTAA

South Florida CEO,  Oct, 2003  

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To understand how vibrant Miami's international banking community is--and how important its links to Latin America are--one need only look to the upcoming Feleban meeting this November. More than 1,000 bankers from 40 countries (mostly Latin American and Caribbean) will attend a three-day event on the private banking sector. Among the key speakers for Feleban--an umbrella organization for more than 600 banks in Central and South America--will be Henrique Meirelles, president of the Central Bank of Brazil.

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"Miami is the ideal place for such a meeting," says Pat Roth, executive director of the Florida International Bankers Association. "This is where everybody can come together."

Indeed, Miami is home to more international financial institutions than any US city outside of New York. And while many of the names come from nations as diverse as Germany, Israel and South Africa, all are here because of Miami's connections to Latin America.

There are dozens of international banking offices in the State of Florida, almost all located in Greater Miami--mostly in Miami's Brickell Avenue financial district and in Coral Gables. Those offices consist of agency offices (30), representative and administrative offices (6) and Edge Act corporations (6). More than two dozen nations are represented in that mix. Altogether, they hold US$14.5 billion in assets. Additionally, there are 27 domestic banks with large international divisions; they add billions more to the asset base. Greater Miami also has more than a dozen foreign-owned domestic banks, such as Venezuelan-owned Commercebank, with more than US$3 billion in assets.

Much of the international banking activity in Miami revolves around financing trade through the state of Florida, which last year reached US$71 billion--US$52 billion of it through the Miami Customs District alone.

Miami's banking prowess is more apparent in the world of private banking, now referred to as wealth management. Institutions such as Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Florida's SunTrust, Switzerland's UBS AG, and Citibank International, along with a dozen others, have established their Latin American private banking operations in Miami.

The banking links with Latin America are derived not just from trade and private wealth, but also from active business investments in the US. "In the last year at least three Chilean multinationals have settled here, primarily to handle their trade with the US and Europe," says Fernando Capablanca, CEO of the Miami agency of Chile's Banco de Credito e Inversiones. "You know, the largest single foreign investment in Miami is from LanChile, their US$70 million [cargo and executive] facility at the airport. Eventually, what happens is that you have a lot of banks following these companies, because these are the banks' customers. When you get a few of them, you get a synergy."

Says Bowman Brown, whose law firm Shutts & Bowen represents many of the European banks here to serve a Latin client base: "High-level decision-making about Latin America will continue to take place in Miami."

Top Ten International Bank Agencies in Miami, 6/30/03 (By Assets, In
Thousands of US)

  Institution                             Assets

1.   Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria    $996,855
2.   Royal Bank of Canada                858,522
3.   Banco de Sabadell                   671,039
4.   ABN-AMRO Bank, N.V.                 666,051
5.   Lloyds TSB Bank PLC                 657,682
6.   Banque Sudameris                    560,437
7.   Banco Atlantico, S.A.               506,934
8.   Banco do Brasil, S.A.               377,451
9.   Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika, A.G.   375,779
10.  Bank Hapoalim, B.M.                270,793

Source: Flonda Department of Financial Services

Note: Barclays Bank PLC would have been No. 1 but left Miami 9/16/03.

RELATED ARTICLE: SNAPSHOT

Billions of US dollars in international bank assets, Miami, 2003: $14.5

Trade financed through Miami, 2002: $52 billion Members of the Florida International Banking Association, 2003: 117

International banking offices, Miami, 10/03: 42

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