| Type | State enterprise |
|---|---|
| Founded | (1891) |
| Headquarters | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Key people | Juan Carlos Fabrega, President |
| Products | Retail Banking Business finance Trade finance Factoring Mutual funds Pension funds Insurance Mortgages Consumer Finance Credit cards |
| Revenue | US$ 2.2 billion (6/2008-09)[1] |
| Net income | US$ 220 million (6/2008-09) |
| Total assets | US$ 25.8 billion (2/2010)[2] |
| Employees | 16,335 (2/2010)[2] |
| Website | www.bna.com.ar |
Banco de la Nación Argentina (English: Bank of the Argentine Nation) is a state-owned bank in Argentina, and the largest in the country's banking sector.
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The bank was founded on October 18, 1891, by President Carlos Pellegrini by way of stabilizing the nation's finances following the Panic of 1890; its first director was Vicente Casares. It became a leading source of finance for agricultural smallholders in its early decades, and later for commercial and industrial businesses, as well as handling an array of public sector transactions.[3] The bank's reputation suffered after it was revealed that bribes had been received by the board of directors in 1994 when contacting IBM for the supply of computers, software, and communication equipment, becoming a prominent political scandal at the time.[4]
Long a significant supplier of domestic lending in a credit-tight economy, the National Bank attempted, with only partial success, to revive the local credit market during the tenure of Gabriela Ciganotto, who stated the main goal of the BNA in her inauguration speech in 2006 as "putting [the bank] at the service of production, especially small and medium businesses, and not of speculation." [5]
Its headquarters in the San Nicolás section of Buenos Aires, designed by local architect Alejandro Bustillo in 1938, were built in a revivalist French neoclassical style, and inaugurated in 1952 on a site previously occupied by the first building to house the Teatro Colón.[6] The headquarters is also home to the Alejandro Bustillo Art Gallery, established in 1971, as well as a Historic and Numismatic Museum.[7]
The bank maintains 624 branches throughout Argentina, and overseas branches in around 15 countries (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia; Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; Georgetown, Cayman Islands; Santiago, Chile; Paris; Tokyo; Panama City; Asunción, Paraguay; Madrid; London; New York City and Miami; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Caracas, Venezuela),[8] along with a representative office in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It employs over 16,000 people in Argentina, and more than 200 abroad.[2]
The bank in 2006 ranked 278th in the world in terms of tier one capital (US$ 1.623 billion) according to The Banker global survey of top 1000 world banks, a Financial Times publication.[9] Domestically, however, it has long been Argentina's largest bank, and as of February 2010, it maintained around US$19 billion in deposits (a quarter of the domestic total) and a loan portfolio of US$10 billion (22% of the domestic total).[2]
Its director, Mercedes Marcó del Pont, was named president of the Central Bank of Argentina on February 3, 2010, and was succeeded by Juan Carlos Fabrega.[10]