(Update with details and context)
MEXICO CITY, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Mexico’s central bank announced Monday that it will provide financing to banks facing justified difficulties in moving dollars in cash, in response to a controversial reform of the monetary entity’s law, seen as a threat. to their autonomy.
The financing will consist of contingent credits that will be granted to interested institutions “under the terms and conditions” determined by the central bank, said the governor of the Bank of Mexico (Banxico), Alejandro Díaz de León, who added that in the coming months the They will give details of the plan.
Due to local laws, banks in Mexico manage to repatriate only a fraction of the cash they receive from tourists or migrants, but the rest remains on their balance sheets and cannot be used for their financial activities.
The measure presented on Monday by Díaz de León seeks to respond to a controversial proposal already approved by the Senate, but which the Chamber of Deputies has yet to discuss, which seeks to force Banxico to buy foreign currency that commercial banks cannot enter the system. financial to become part of the international reserves.
The initiative to reform the central bank law has been severely criticized by Díaz de León himself and some deputy governors of the central bank, as well as specialists, claiming that in addition to violating the autonomy of the entity, there is a risk of absorbing money from drug cartels.
Luis Niño de Rivera, president of the Association of Banks of Mexico (ABM), said that between 17 and 20 banking institutions could be interested in making use of the financing offered by the central bank.
In addition to the plan drawn up by Díaz de León, financial authorities announced at the same event their intention to bank the migrants in the United States and their families in Mexico, in a country where 30% of the adult population does not have any financial product. , according to official statistics. (Reporting by Abraham González; Edited by Ana Isabel Martínez and Adriana Barrera)
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