New competitive strategies of foreign banks in large emerging economies: the case of Brazil

Financial relations have been deeply transformed in the 1980s and 1990s by deregulation and liberalization. Among the most affected by these changes has been the banking system. Domestic banks have generally lost the implicit protection given by regulatory barriers to entry. Until very recently, in most of the world, foreign banks had their range of operations limited by both regulatory and market factors in developed and developing countries alike. This has radically changed in the 1990s. Foreign banks previously content to hold marginal positions in domestic emerging markets started to pursue aggressive strategies of expansion. Competition among banks operating domestically is being intensified as a result, particularly in emerging economies large enough to support entry of new banking firms. We examine the case of Brazil, where, following the semi-crisis of 1995, a significant number of banks set up subsidiaries fighting for increasing market shares of the domestic market. The paper shows the was these banks chose to enter the market and explores the perspectives for the domestic banking sector.