Scholars have examined the long-run trajectory of Latin America’s financial development since independence, focusing on the impact of international business cycles and volatile capital flows on the region’s economic performance. The integration of Latin America into global finance since the first economic globalization (1873-1914) had far-reaching consequences, particularly during the financial crises in the 1930s and 1980s, significantly impacting global financial stability. Emerging markets in the region became part of the international payments system during the late nineteenth-century export boom, experienced a retreat during the Great Depression, gradually reestablished connections with the economic core during the Bretton Woods era (1945-early 1971), and subsequently intensified their exposure to international finance until the Latin American debt crisis of 1982.
Despite extensive research on Latin America’s financial history, the existing literature has not thoroughly investigated the establishment of correspondent relationships between banks in global financial centers and banks in Mexico and South America. This paper focuses on the formation and functioning of Mexico’s international banking networks from the first economic globalization (1870-1914) to the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, relying on datasets drawn from The Bankers’ Almanac, a U.K. source and Rand McNally’s Bankers’ Directory, a U.S. source, and three archival-based case studies.
The paper finds that Mexican banks’ connections with banks abroad mirrored the relative shares of the United Kingdom and the United States as trade partners and foreign capital sources. Banks in Mexico were more closely linked to New York banks. The paper reconstructs the connections to correspondents and agents in global financial centers (London, New York, Paris) for three banks: Banco Nacional de México (Banamex, now Citibanamex, 1895-1914), Banco de México (Banxico, Mexico’s central bank, 1926-1931), and Banco de Comercio (Bancomer, now BBVA, 1947-1956), mobilizing evidence drawn from annual reports, minutes from shareholders’ meetings, correspondence and memoranda.