Mexico’s central bank is set to announce Monday that it will lend money to local banks that can’t find U.S. financial institutions to take their stashes of bulk cash in dollars, according to a draft of a statement seen by Bloomberg News.
The pledge to help Mexican banks is part of a raft of new measures to be announced by finance officials to help migrants access banking services and get better exchange rates for dollars they bring home.
“Banco de Mexico will provide facilities to credit institutions that have difficulty repatriating dollars in cash, through guaranteed contingent financing, under the terms and conditions determined by the central bank,” according to the draft statement, which did not provide further details.
The central bank declined to comment on the new measures. As the statement is still in draft form, final details could change.
Finance officials are set to present the plan as an alternate solution to a bill passed by Mexico’s Senate that would force the central bank to purchase dollars from local lenders that cannot find correspondent banks in the U.S. that want to work with them. The central bank argued the measure could force it to take dollars of dubious origin and open it up to money laundering sanctions from U.S. authorities.
The billionaire Ricardo Salinas, the owner of Banco Azteca, was the only top banker to publicly back the bill, arguing that Mexican banks had some of the strictest controls in the world. Global lenders operating in Mexico have opposed the bill, which hasn’t been approved by the lower house.
Central Bank Gov. Alejandro Diaz de Leon, Finance Minister Arturo Herrera and Luis Nino, head of the Mexican banking association and the chairman of the board of Banco Azteca are set to announce the new measures later on Monday.
The plan also includes using President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s Banco de Bienestar, or Wellbeing Bank, to help migrants open Mexico accounts from the U.S., as well as other measures so they can change dollars at a better rate.
The Banco de Bienestar declined a request for comment.
