Banco de la Nación Argentina

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Main building of the Banco de la Nación in front of the Plaza de Mayo

Banco de la Nación Argentina (English: Bank of the Argentine Nation) is a state-owned bank in Argentina, and the largest in the country's banking sector. It has 616 branches throughout the national territory and 14 branches abroad in 9 different countries (Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, Santiago in Chile, Asunción in Paraguay, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil, Panama City in Panama, Georgetown in the Cayman Islands, New York City and Miami in the United States, and Madrid in Spain), along with a representation office in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It employs about 16,000 people in Argentina and more than 200 abroad.

The bank was founded in 1891 by President Carlos Pellegrini. Its current president is Gabriela Ciganotto, who stated the main goal of the BNA in her inauguration speech as "putting [the bank] at the service of production, especially small and medium businesses, and not of speculation". [1] [2] [3] [4]

The bank's reputation was severely damaged after it was revealed that bribes had been received by the board of directors when contracting the American company IBM for the supply of computers, software, and communication equipment, durign the presidency of Carlos Menem.

According to an independent survey of Latin American banks conducted by Management & Excellence on behalf of Latin Finance magazine (Latin Finance Banking Directory 2005), the BNA ranked last in the survey, achieving a final score of 8.8 in ethics and transparency out of 100. Banco Nación won low marks for ethics, sustainability, corporate governance and transparency. ^[1]

The bank ranks 278th in the world in terms of tier one capital (US$ 1,623 millions) and 912th in terms of Return on Assets (0.12%), according to The Banker 2006 global survey of top 1000 world banks, a Financial Times publication..