Banorte Chairman Carlos Hank González recently met with Harry van Schaick, editor in chief at Oxford Business Group, a research and analysis company, to bring awareness to issues impacting Mexico’s financial industry. In their 15-minute conversation, Carlos Hank González talked about solutions to decrease poverty levels in Mexico, address financial education and push for corporate environmental efforts and equality in the workplace.
Mexico is facing a growing financial gap among populations, and the low utilization of financial tools is increasing this problem. Less than 50% of the Mexican population has access to bank accounts, and only one out of four people have access to make transactions or payments through electronic banking.
“I believe financial inclusion plays a great role in banking,” said Banorte Chairman, Carlos Hank González. “By achieving that, we would be making a great contribution to the development of our country.”
Since the pandemic, Banorte has launched Enlace Digital, a product that allows customers to open accounts digitally. This new application has opened more than 30 thousand digital accounts and has helped to facilitate financial inclusion.
Technology like this paired with financial education allows banks to provide a wider range of financial services to people, empowering more of the population to become part of the financial system and thereby increasing income levels.
“It has been proven that financial training and financial education helps the population to improve their income level, thus eradicating poverty levels,” said Carlos Hank González.
Foster equality and diversity
Financial inclusion is only one piece of the puzzle to improving the stability of the financial sector in Mexico. The industry does not maintain a positive percentage of women in the workforce, but for change to be enacted, diversity needs to become a part of the companies DNA, whether men or women have the same opportunities, sexual orientation or ethnicity. It must be a true commitment within the institution to understand why it is important.
“If this goal is enacted from the beginning within the heart of an institution, it is more likely to become permanent in practice because when this is done in isolation, there is probably an isolated effort,” said Carlos Hank González.
Banorte is one of the few institutions within Mexico that trains and makes its personnel aware of the importance of diversity within the institution to attract and promote the best talent.
Because it has put this issue at the heart of its institution, it has become a true commitment and allowed for progress within the entire company and community beyond.
Preserving our financial future
Corporate environmental efforts and its community impact must become a major stakeholder in business operations. Sustainability is at the heart of Banorte’s DNA, with a firm commitment to decarbonization by 2050. Banorte has already launched a fund for small- and medium-sized companies to finance sustainable energy projects and automotive financing for electric or hybrid cars.
“On an international level, companies and leaders must understand that we can make big changes and improvement to our world, but to do so we must take responsibly for those changes — that is what we are doing at Banorte,” said Carlos Hank González. “I am very pleased to see more Mexican companies taking these issues to heart and the progress expanding worldwide.”