But in current Argentina it is evident that the measure, in the context of other policies that are being adopted, constitutes a step oriented to privatize and reduce the bank, contrary to a world that revalues the role of the public sector and productive policies, something that recognizes the own IMP As can be seen in the document “The return of industrial policy in data, January 2024”.
The importance of the National Bank
He National Bank It was created in the conservative government of Carlos Pellegrini in 1891 after the economic and financial crisis of 1890 with the aim of promoting economic activity throughout the country. Its foundation precedes in several decades to the Central Bank created in 1935. Throughout more than 133 years of existence, various vital roles for development have fulfilled throughout the country.
To have an idea of the magnitude of the bank in the Argentine financial system, according to the latest available figures from the Central Bank as of November 30, 2024, BNA represents 16.49% of the total credits of the Argentine financial system and 23.99% of deposits. Likewise, the National Bank constitutes 30.27% of the net assets of the banking system, with 23.9% of the total assets and 21.9% of the system liabilities.
The BNA has a unique presence throughout the country with a great capillarity through 721 branches that provide various financial services to the population, including not only charges and payments, but a credit activity oriented to production and SMEs.
This activity in all its territorial deployment, not only necessarily complements traditional commercial banking, which guides traditional financial products for population segments with formal work, but also has acted as a virtual development bank, after the liquidation of the Banade and complementing the BICE, a bank conceived to finance foreign trade, but of little capitalization.
The importance of the National Bank for the country
The BNA also provides financial services in some provinces where the Tequila crisis (1994-1995) liquidated the provincial bank that traditionally articulated and complemented with the BNA customer service throughout the country.
Out of the provision of these services, Banco Nación, due to its weight in the financial system, has a key role as a witness bank in the concretion of public policies and especially in improving financial conditions for the population (reducing interest rates and expanding the deadlines of the credits).
According to the information of the Transparency Regime of the Central Bank, it can be seen that both the Nation Bank and the Province Bank have an interest rate on deposits of 2.1 percentage points on the fixed deadlines on the first -line private banks. In relation to UVA mortgage loans, the Nation Bank charges a margin 2.4 percentage points lower than the average of the first -line private banking.
There were various attempts to privatize BNA. In 1996 during the presidency of Carlos Menem, progress was made in preparatory steps, but when transcending the idea, the government filed the sale. In 2000 during the alliance government, the IMF proposed privatization as part of a new “stand by” but given the strong social resistance, including part of the ruling coalition and of the rural entities themselves that with the mortgaged fields had verified that only official banks gave credit, before the withdrawal of the growingly foreign banking after the crisis of 1997. Will we have memory?
There is no doubt that the government would advance from winning the mid -term elections and if society does not react in the privatization of the bank. There was already an attempt to include it in the payroll of companies subject to privatization in the Bases Law, of which it was finally excluded, but there is no doubt that the decree of corporate transformation points for sale. Will the government try if you fail to do so by law to advance through a DNU next summer? If you appointed court judges by decree, it is not something negligible, taking into account that the Constitution only borders DNU in tax and electoral issues.
From a logic of “market” a privatized nation bank would close branches and points of attention in various parts of the country that by scale do not give profits, in addition to leaving productive credit bias and moderation in the “spread” between passive and active rates.
The National Bank must be efficient and give profits, but not maximize profitability at any pricebut it must apply part of its profitability as a commercial bank to provide financial services throughout the country, outside of preserving its productive bias that allows the National State (its shareholder) to leverage the growth of the country and serve all its “shareholders” or the citizenship of the country. It is about taking care of the “big balance” of the nation through an efficient and socially economic bank.
It is no accident that In recent decades the National Bank only had losses from 2017 to 2019 When policies supposedly “efficient” were declared, which did not prevent questionable credits such as Vicentín, within the framework of an prevailing economic model that affected the bank’s balance, which did not happen when the BNA and the financial system obtained profitability in a growing country (1945-1975) and (2002-1015) while the BNA could promote economic activity and fulfill at the same time a social role.
Nor is it casual that the need to strengthen the bank is currently declined, but it is used as a political tool to discipline the opposition, as happened with the closure of the branches of La Pampa and Ramos Mejía in the Matanza party, affecting thousands of citizens of the country.
There is also a suggestive parallel between the privatizing claim of a quarter of a century ago and the decree of days ago that was announced before the trip and subsequent meeting of the president with the managing director of the IMF.
It is clear that certain financial sectors would benefit from a privatized and reduced bank, winning not only market share but also having more margin to reduce savings performance and more expensive loans, in addition to the deterioration in the quality of the service in numerous areas of the country where the bank is present and where many citizens should move kilometers to find a bank branch because “it is not business”.
The National Bank, articulating with the Central Bank and other public and private actors, must play a key role in the country’s financial education, in the protection of the financial consumer, in the inclusion of vulnerable sectors and with different capacities. It should also be analyzed if the bank can morely articulate the development bank service by synergies with the BICE.
There is no doubt that the role of the Nation Bank must be discussed, in a financial system that is quickly transformed, given technological development, the emergence of other non -banking actors such as “Fintech”. It is also true that we must work to capitalize and make it more efficient, attending to new demands, which impose productive and social changes, but it is clear that the latter is not the objective of the government and as our history teaches, when public heritage is affected and there is no country vision, a national project the result of “shrinking the nation is to shrink the nation”.
Source: Ambito
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