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Cross-border investment has been a large part of merger and acquisition activity in the Latin American banking sector. Spain and the United States have been the largest investors, participating in almost 70% of the total transaction value. After an explanation of the importance of foreign direct investment and implications for cross-border investment, this paper focuses on the largest investor in the region's banking sector and attempts to find an explanation for the increasing participation of Spanish banks. The paper alludes to a potential new reality: Latin America could be the geographical location where major contenders in banking will be engaged in battles for global dominance.

In the euro’s initial years, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain observed capital flow bonanzas and credit-booms, two cycles known to precede banking crises. Domestic banks fuelled those cycles via funding obtained from foreign financial institutions. Yet, these countries’ banking and financial crises have unfolded in different modes. In Ireland and Spain, credit-booms propelled real-estate bubbles, which dragged banks into crises, with governments’ accounts later being affected when rescuing banks (Spanish regional banks, and all Irish major banks). In Greece and Italy, extra monetary means perpetuated government imbalances (e.g. debt levels above 100% of GDP, large yearly deficits). More severely in Greece, banks were brought into crises by sovereign crises. In Portugal, a mixture of private and public sector–led crises have occurred. Our comparative study finds that these crises: (1) are connected to shocks and imbalances caused by dangerous banking sector cycles during the monetary integration process; (2) were not mere expansions of the US subprime crisis; (3) were not only caused by country-specific features and institutions; and (4) followed distinct paths, therefore, a uniform model encompassing all post-euro crises cannot exist.

This chapter explores the impact of international financial integration on credit markets in Latin America, using a cross-country dataset covering 17 countries between 1996 and 2008. It is found that financial integration amplifies the impact of international financial shocks on aggregate credit and interest rate fluctuations. Nonetheless, the net impact of integration on deepening credit markets dominates for the large majority of states of nature. The chapter also uses a detailed bank-level dataset that covers more than 500 banks for a similar time period to explore the role of financial integration – captured through the participation of foreign banks – in propagating external shocks. It is found that interest rates charged and loans supplied by foreign-owned banks respond more to external financial shocks than those supplied by domestically owned banks. This does not hold for all foreign banks. Spanish banks in the sample behave more like domestic banks and do not amplify the impact of foreign shocks on credit and interest rates.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether and how Spanish listed companies adopt formalized and integrated models of risk management during the period 2016–2018 and disclose them inside annual reports. Such investigation rebuilds the international regulatory and self-regulatory framework about risk management and examines the pressures and constraints influencing the adoption and implementation of ERM model in Spain. Indeed, the instability and uncertainty of the global macroeconomic context and the new threats to the corporate profitability and survival are now contributing to the development of a new dimension of risk management system more updated, dynamic and integrated. The results of the content analysis on ERM disclosure in annual reports show that Spanish listed companies are not equipped with structured and integrated risk management systems and their risk management approach is not aligned with any ERM framework. Notwithstanding, the Spanish companies are taking remarkable steps to strengthen the risk management systems towards a higher level of integration and systematization.

Deregulation and other factors permit and encourage financial institutions to become more integrated, both within their own (financial) industries, such as banking and insurance, and across these industries. Financial regulators have responded with like integration. As financial institutions increasingly compete with firms from other industries and areas, financial regulators similarly compete more across borders. The resulting competition in financial regulation enhances innovation, choice, and efficiency. The advent of home-run regulation, which in general allows financial institutions to adhere only to the financial regulations of their home area and is spreading across the US and Europe, may allow numerous regulatory regimes within a given market.

After three years of decline, the size and number of international acquisitions is picking up again. We show that there is every reason to believe that some of the mistakes of earlier acquisition waves will be made again. This paper presents five lessons from recent research that will help to avoid costly mistakes and instead build a successful multinational corporation. These lessons are illustrated with a case that has attracted much attention recently: the Ahold case.

Granting mortgages to customers likely to become insolvent was widespread in Spain during the housing bubble that burst in 2007, resulting in an unprecedented rate of home repossessions. The practice was usually legal, but if power relations, structural determinations, and asymmetrical access to information are taken into account, it appears abusive and socially harmful. Several sorts of people were involved in it: bank staff who, under pressure from managers, took advantage of their long-standing relationships with customers; real estate agents and mortgage brokers who saw a business opportunity in people’s aspiration to home ownership; and investment banking executives who devised sophisticated financial products aimed at masking risk. For them, selling risky mortgages was not only a profitable business but also a way to comply with norms, values, and expectations at play in their social settings. This chapter will show how mortgage lending and its evaluation as wrong or acceptable by actors in different social positions has a relational nature, and is based on diverging moral economies that guide economic action in the framework of neoliberalism.

Significant structural changes of the Mexican banking industry have resulted in greater concentration: first, the 1982 expropriation and government control; later on, in 1990, the decision to re-privatize it. In addition, when the economy turned around in 1994–1995, the financial health of several banks rapidly deteriorated and ended in one of the most critical financial crisis the country has experienced. Among the bold measures taken to rescue the system, the banking industry was fully open to foreign investment. At the time of this writing, more than 80% of the banking industry in Mexico is controlled by foreign world class banks.

This paper studies the impact of ownership structure on performance in European banking both prior and during the recent crisis. We use a panel of European banks during the period 1996–2011 and utilize random effects estimations in order to identify differences in bank performance (profitability, loan quality, and cost efficiency) due to differences in ownership structure. Both stakeholder and shareholder banks have distinct advantages, shareholder banks showing better profitability before the crisis but stakeholder banks having higher loan quality before and during the crisis. Differences in profitability and loan quality between stakeholder and shareholder banks before the crisis are especially pronounced in countries that experienced a banking crisis after 2007. There is strong a heterogeneity in performance between different stakeholder ownership groups. With the exception of private savings banks, profitability and loan quality of stakeholder banks has improved relative to that of general shareholder banks during the crisis years. The paper contributes to the previous literature by comparing pre-crisis and crisis performance and includes more refined ownership classifications. The results indicate that the survival of the stakeholder model is due to its competitive advantages. Our findings provide support for those arguing that the diversity of organizational structures is worth preserving. Ownership pluralism should become a policy objective in the banking industry.