QCOSTARICA | Scotiabank has completed its purchase of Citi’s retail banking operations. As of Monday, Feb. 1, 2016, the Canadian bank assumed control of all Citi branches in Costa Rica and Panama.
The purchased valued at US$360 million dollars that began last June, included 21 branches, 88 ATMs and four call centres, serving 250,000 customers in personal and business banking.
In Costa Rica, Scotiabank has about 110,000 customers.
During the “integration” process approved on January 14, 2016 by the Superintendencia General de Entidades Financieras (SUGEF), Citi will be under the control of the subsidiary Grupo Financiero BNS de Costa Rica, and operate as a sister bank to Scotia.
Jean-Luc Rich, general manager of Scotiabank Costa Rica, explained the public will start seeing the changes later in the month (of February).
The Grupo Financiero BNS de Costa Rica, in addition to the retail banking, it provides services in leasing, investment funds and stock brokerage. During the integration process, to differentiate the group’s two banking operations, one will be called “Scotiabank” and the other “Scotiabank Transforming” (Scotiabank Transformándose in Spanish).
Speaking to Elfinancierocr.com, Rich said in having two legal entities (banks) operating in the market, it is important that customers can see that although we have a similar name the two banks are not the same. “There is still no system integration or value propositions, the two banks will be working in parallel on the market,” said Rich.
By the numbers.
[su_table]
| COSTA RICA | Branches | ATM’s | Employeess |
| Scotiabank | 34 | 158 | 1,286 |
| Scotiabank Transforming | 11 | 35 | 1,184 |
| PANAMA | Branches | ATM’s | Employeess |
| Scotiabank | 16 | 22 | 425 |
| Scotiabank Transforming | 10 | 53 | 708 |
[/su_table]
