The Rural Development Bank plans to open 21 branches in Honduras, investing $40 million.
Guatemalan banks are expanding into Central America. This time it is the Banrural, which has plans to open 21 branches in Honduras after obtaining permission from the authorities.
"The two largest banks in Guatemala have crossed the border and are competing for the Central American financial market, setting up operations in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama; now they are being joined by the Rural Development Bank (Banrural) which has decided to enter Honduras and in the long term is also interested in expanding into El Salvador", reports ElPeriodico.com.
In recent years, electronic transfers have been growing at a rapid pace.
Bank managers agree that the use of electronic banking operations reduces transaction costs, being this the main reason for its growth.
Luis Lara, manager of the Banco Industrial (BI) told Prensalibre.com that the institution expects amount of electronic transactions made by the end of 2011 to exceed those of 2010 when they totaled $1,377 million.
The installation of ATMs using Mayan languages has led to increased banking activities by indigenous populations.
The program, developed by the Rural Development Bank (Banrural), began in 2005 with 108 machines, and now has 420 multilingual ATMs, which as well as offering instructions in Spanish, can also cater to Mayan speakers of Quiche, Cakchiquel, Q'eqchi ', Ixil, Mam and q'anjob'al.
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