By Ricardo Serra
LIMA (Reuters) - Scotiabank Peru, the third-largest lender in the country, expects the country's banking market to grow about 20 percent this year as the economy expands at a fast clip.
Speaking at the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, Scotibank Peru (SCO.LM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (BNS.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), General Manager Carlos Gonzalez-Taboada said on Thursday the bank aims to increase its share of the banking market by 1.5 percentage points by 2008.
He gave no figures for its current share of the banking market.
Peru's banking superintendency said Scotiabank, a unit of Toronto-based Scotiabank (BNS.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), had a 15.9 percent share of credits granted by private banks in Peru and accounted for 16.6 percent of private bank sector deposits at the end of 2006.
"We estimate the banking market growing at about 20 percent," he said. "The financial system has grown in a consistent form since three or four years ago, and in 2007 we expect the same tendency."
Peru's economy grew 8 percent last year, its fastest expansion in 11 years. For 2007, the central bank forecasts 6.8 percent growth in gross domestic product.
"The improvement in Peru's per capita income allows financial activity to have wider market ... incorporating segments of the consumer and worker population who did not have access to the banking system."
He added Scotiabank Peru is expanding outside Lima, Peru's capital and the biggest city in the country.
He cited the expansion of business in the Peruvian Amazon cities of Iquitos and Tarapoto.
"We see potential in these areas," he said, citing growing agricultural production.
Scotiabank in 2006 entered Peru's retail and consumer market when it acquired Lima-based Banco Wiese Sudameris and Banco Sudamericano.
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