The Bank of Mexico (established 1925), in which the government owns 51% of the capital stock, is also the central bank and bank of issue. Together with the National Banking and Insurance Commission and the Secretariat of Finance, it supervises commercial, savings, trust, mortgage, capitalization, and investment institutions.
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National institutions for economic development extend agricultural and long-term industrial credit and finance and develop public works, international trade, cooperatives, and the motion picture industry; they also operate savings accounts. The National Financing Agency (founded in 1934) acts as a financing and investing corporation; it also regulates the Mexican stock market and long-term credits.
There are a number of state development banks, including Nacional Financiera (Nafin, mainly for small and medium-sized businesses), ProMexico ( succesor of Bancomext, the bank of foreign trade), Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos (Banobras, public works and services) among others.
The National Securities Commission (founded in 1946) supervises stock transactions. The Stock Exchange of Mexico (Bolsa Mexicana de Valores), the largest stock exchange in Latin America, was organized in its present form in 1933. It lists the stocks of the most important industrial companies, as well as a few mining stocks. Two smaller exchanges at Monterrey and Guadalajara were absorbed in 1976 by the Mexico City exchange. Trading on the exchange increased tenfold between 1976 and 1981, but dropped thereafter with the prolonged recession. It recovered to its 1979 level by 1986 and rose 124% in 1987 despite a spectacular crash in October and November of that year tied to the Wall Street's crash. The greatest part of the trading is in fixed-interest, high-yield bonds and bank deposit paper. Under new rules, which came into force in November 1989, foreigners are allowed to purchase almost any stock through a "neutral" trust, although as of 1997 they still did not have voting rights. In 1992, the market behaved erratically, largely because of sensitivity to the political and economic situation in the US and uncertainty about NAFTA.
In 1996, the recovery in the stock market strengthened as the economy began to pull out of recession, inflation and interest rates fell, and the currency held steady. As confidence grew, so foreign investment flowed back into the market. By mid-year, the total value of foreign investment in the stock exchange was $33.8 billion compared with $27.8 billion at the end of 1995, $34.4 billion at the end of 1994, and $54.6 billion at the end of 1993.
Bancomext/Promexico is establised to promote the attraccion of foreign direct investment to Mexico, through a right dissemination of the competitive advantages of the country.
More information at Promexico´s homepages