An agreement with the National Bank to tranfer funds from the country’s departure tax will help to deal with the difficult financial situation that Banco Crédito Agrícola (Cartago) is going through.
In the last years, the entity has been experiencing a series of events that has affected its financial situation, which is still good, but that has already alarmed the General Superintendence of Financial Entities (SUGEF).
It also drew the attention of the Economic Council, which involves authorities from the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, entities that have tried to bring the entity into a less worrying situation.
In recent months, Bancrédito has even had monthly closures with losses, something uncommon in state banks.
How did Bancrédito come to be in this situation?
One of the events that hit it the most took place in 2012, when the entity stopped administrating Development Bank’s funds, which meant a drop in revenues of about ¢ 4.5 billion.
The closure of that year did not bring good news either. The entity reported the largest delinquent portfolio of the banking system.
In 2015, there was another announcement that was not favorable either: Bank of Costa Rica was now in charge of saling official stamps.
Finally, a fall in profits in 2016 forced the country’s economic authorities to negotiate with the third state-owned bank.
Bancrédito signed an agreement with the National Bank, whereby a discount of ¢ 2,000 million, corresponding to the amount estimated by commissions on the collection of taxes on departure during the following 17 months, was established.
Bancrédito is responsible for collecting this tribute, that must be paid by every passenger before travelling by air.
Under the agreement, the National Bank will deliver the funds in advance to Bancrédito and Bancrédito will transfer part of the commissions from March 2017 to July 2018.