Estructura financiera y concentración bancaria: el caso argentino

Abstract

The aim of the work is analyzing the behaviour of the financial system in Argentina, specially the banking one, in the last decade. It is held that the financial activity tends to adapt itself to the changes undergone in the productive structure, and when interacting with the latter, it stresses the observed trends of industrial concentration and increasing participation of foreign capital. The private banking system was already strongly concentrated at the beginning of the Sities, during which it has operated a continuous process of fusion and adsorption among banks. The must significant change has been the sharpening of the banking denationalization process: the foreign banks have more than the 40% of the deposits, but the share is greater in the group of big banks. It is observed that the big enterprises, and among them the foreign corporation predominate, have much more banking financial support than small firms this discrimination implies advantages in terms of financial costs fot the big firms. This can be explained by the fact that banks, specially the big ones, avoid taking any risks; they rather lend money to big enterprises, which offer more safety and demand additional services. Facing the institutional impossibility of charging differential rates of interest, the banking system rations the credit to the small borrowers.