Andréa Novais

Andréa Novais


The Brazil Business

Updated

Foreign banks with offices in Brazil

Andréa Novais

Andréa Novais


The Brazil Business

Updated

With the economic importance of Brazil, several foreign banks have opened representative offices and even branches offering consumer banking services in the country. In this article, we have made a selection of the most important foreign financial institutions operating in Brazilian cities.

The great majority of foreign banks’ offices are located in São Paulo city, mostly concentrated at Paulista Avenue and Brooklin and Itaim Bibi areas. Most of them are only offices that offer no consumer banking services, but yet investment options.

The selection made for this article is based on a study made by ABBI – Associação Brasileira de Bancos Internacionais (Brazilian Association for International Banks).

Africa

Out of all the continents, this is the one with least number of representatives in Brazil (with the exception of Ocenia) and the two financial institutions selected for this list are from South Africa. Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, despite being Portuguese speaking countries, have no representatives in Brazil.

America

North America

American banks are strong in Brazil, especially those working with investments. Bank of America, for example, has invested in several Brazilian brands, such as Natura, Gol, Gafisa, TAM, Usiminas and Petrobras, only to name a few.

South America

The South American representatives in Brazil are basically restricted to Argentina and Uruguay.

Asia

With a significant presence of Asian people and companies in Brazil (especially in São Paulo), the number of Asian banks in the country is considerably low.

Europe

Strongly present in Brazil, European banks are not restricted to investments as some of them have been completely inserted in the Brazilian consumer banking market, such as the British HSBC and the Spanish Santander, being listed among the ten major Brazilian banks.