The lesson learned from BuenaVentura
One of the things we are learning about the current financial crisis is that banks operate best when they really operate as banks.
When it was launched a year ago, Banco Buenaventura looked like a great idea for serving the Hispanic community. And we gave the brains behind the institution the benefit of the doubt for building their business plan around services and money transfers — two non-traditional paths to profit for a financial institution.
But the world now wants a bank that makes money the old-fashioned way — lending it out to business borrowers at a premium and taking in deposits that are cheap and insured. Banco BuenaVentura never quite fit that mold.
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