Banking correspondents continue to rise; Oxxo, the largest: CNBV

Mexico City. Banking correspondents, points where people can make deposits, pay cards, open accounts, among other services, do not stop growing, and Oxxo prevails as the player with the greatest presence in the country, shows a study released this Wednesday by the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV).

According to the Annual Panorama of Financial Inclusion, at the end of 2023 (the last available) the number of correspondents reached 53,190, which implied a growth of 5 percent compared to 2022.

The above means that three out of every four municipalities, in which 98 percent of the country’s total adult population lives, have a correspondent and on average, one correspondent has a contract with 10 financial institutions.

The figures show that the number of banking correspondents in the country practically triples that of bank branches, since at the end of 2023, the latter totaled 18,089.

“The main business that served as a correspondent was the Oxxo store chain, which concentrated almost half of the correspondents and maintained a commercial contract with 20 institutions,” the CNBV stated.

The information available indicates that Oxxo, at the end of last year, had 25,635 branches that function as banking correspondents, the equivalent of 48 percent of the total; followed by the Yastás network of Gentera, the company that owns Compartamos Banco, which had 6,295 or 12 percent of the total.

According to the CNBV, the third largest banking correspondent in the country is Wal-Mart with 3,383 or 6 percent of the total; Farmacias Guadalajara follows with 2,785 or 5 percent of the total; 7 Eleven with 2,385 or 4 percent; Financiera para el Bienestar with 2,155 or 4 percent; Farmacias del Ahorro with 2,092 or another 4 percent and Coppel with 1,781 or 3 percent.

The missing 13 percent or the 6,679 remaining correspondents are divided between Tiendas Extra (1,219), Soriana (1,169) and Super Kiosko (667).

The study released by the supervisory body indicates that the operations that were carried out the most in correspondents were deposits (76 percent), and BBVA, the bank with the greatest presence among those operating in the country, was the one with the largest amount.

Next are credit payments (12 percent) and cash withdrawals (11 percent), with BanCoppel as the institution with the largest amount of both operations.

The CNBV specified that the State of Mexico was the entity with the highest number of correspondents with four thousand 547 and Tijuana, in Baja California, was the municipality with the highest number with one thousand 139.