Mexico City. Mexican citizens and companies transferred $ 21.88 billion to U.S. bank accounts in the first two years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, according to information from the US Federal Reserve (Fed).
Since the current government began in December 2018, Mexican accounts in US banks have become the largest in Latin American countries, according to Fed reports.
In November 2020, the accounts of Mexicans in that country totaled 93 thousand 618 million dollars, according to figures updated by the Fed at the end of January last year. The amount was 29 percent higher than that reported in December 2018, which was $ 72.53 billion. This involved an increase in the period of 21 thousand 88 million.
For comparative purposes, the amount of Mexican deposits in US banks is equivalent to 84% of the balance of the external debt of the federal government, which, according to the Ministry of Finance, reached 111 thousand 62.3 million dollars in December last year.
The way of money
The $ 21 billion 88 million increase in Mexican deposits over the past two years is equivalent to just over half of remittances to Mexico in 2020, which was $ 40 trillion and far exceeds the value of oil and agriculture exports. which lasted a year were 17 thousand 413 million, respectively 18 thousand 682 million dollars.
The amount reached in November last year by Mexican deposits in US banks is the second highest since there is a record, according to Fed data. It is surpassed only by those reported in April 2020, when it was 96.407 billion dollars. So, in the last year, you can find the two months in which the two largest balances of money transferred from Mexico to that country were reached.
In the first year of the current government, there was a small decrease in Mexican resources. At the end of 2019, deposits totaled $ 71,878 million, 652 million less than in December 2018, according to Fed data.
Since then, the balance of Mexican accounts has generally remained rising, according to official information.
In January 2020, the amount of deposits was 76 thousand 166 million dollars, an amount 4 thousand 288 million higher than that reported just a month before, the Fed reported. It rose to 96 thousand 407 million in April, the first month of confinement to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, and when the Mexican private sector called for government support measures to alleviate the closure.
In May last year, deposits fell to $ 93.98 billion, a similar amount to that reported last November, according to Fed data.
In Mexico, the reference interest rate fluctuated last year between 7% at the beginning of the period and 4.25% in December. In the United States, it remained at 0.25% year-on-year.
The champions of the region
Among Latin American citizens and companies, those of Mexican descent are leaders in most of their bank accounts in the United States.
Total Latin American deposits – excluding the Caribbean – totaled $ 268 thousand 586 million in November last year, 16.6 percent more than in December 2019, when they were 230 thousand 258 million and 16.1 percent higher than at the close of 2018, which was $ 231 thousand 251 million.
Thus, until November last year, Mexicans owned just over a quarter, 26.8 percent, of all deposits in Latin America, according to Fed data.
The second group of Latin Americans with the largest amount of deposits in American banks is that of the citizens of Brazil – a larger economy than Mexico – with 32 thousand 339 million dollars in November last year, an amount that is equivalent to just over a third of what Mexicans have, Fed reports show.
On the list are the citizens of Chile, with 27 thousand 42 million dollars; Panama, with 23 thousand 821 million; Uruguay, with 20,279 million, and Argentina, with 16 thousand 943 million dollars, among the most relevant and, in all cases, with figures from the Fed updated until November last year.