How much GDP is there to manage by bank?

📊 🏦 Mexico has the highest GDP per bank in Latin America, but only 47% of adults have accounts... here's why ↓

We once noted that Brazil is the banking capital of Latin America. Yet when it comes to the ratio between market size and banks, Mexico is the place to watch.

Latin America’s second-largest economy towers above its peers on gross domestic product per bank, with a staggering $60B of GDP managed per institution.

On paper, that looks like efficiency: fewer banks handling more of the economy. But scratch deeper, and it represents more than just “low bank density.” It points to a system that is both concentrated and at times downright exclusionary.

Now, low bank density doesn’t have to be inherently damaging. Consolidated banks can scale services, invest in technology, and stay profitable. But Mexico’s model leaves huge swathes of its population outside the system.

Only 47% of adults have a bank account, compared to 74% in Chile and over 80% in Brazil.

Meanwhile, private credit is stuck at 31% of GDP, less than half the OECD average. That all points to big banks with narrow reach: lean on the surface, shallow underneath.

So what do Mexican banks do with their lending firepower?

The loan mix says it all: they’re overwhelmingly tilted toward commercial credit. Consumer and housing loans play second fiddle, meaning firms and corporate clients enjoy easier access while households are left on the margins.

That helps business investment, but it reinforces gaps in financial inclusion.

The exclusion is stark. A whopping 51M of Mexicans—about half the population—remain unbanked. In practice, banks are serving the formal sector well, while the informal economy and lower-income groups remain credit-starved.

It’s a structure that stabilizes earnings at the price of an under-stimulated domestic market.

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