Banking: The week in 10 stories

The Brazilian unit of Spanish banking giant Santander saw a net profit increase of 24.6% last year thanks to the combination of strong loan growth and higher revenues.

Local financial group Alexandria has launched a blockchain platform called LexTokens for investment in crypto assets backed by power plants.

The World Bank banned for three years Odebrecht subsidiary Construtora Norberto Odebrecht from projects financed by the multilateral lender due to its involvement in a corruption scheme.

MEXICO

Banco Santander México's CFO Didier Mena told a Q4 conference call that the country's government would likely reign in proposed legislation to curtail bank fees.

Mexico's economy decelerated in the fourth quarter of 2018 with GDP growth slowing to 0.3% quarter-on-quarter from 0.8% in the previous quarter, in seasonally adjusted terms.

VENEZUELA

Venezuela's self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó unveiled key points of a major economic recovery plan.

US sanctions on Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA are likely to be the "final straw" for the socialist regime of President Nicolás Maduro (pictured), according to Capital Economics.

COLOMBIA

Finance minister, Alberto Carrasquilla, and the head of national finance agency Findeter, Sandra Gómez, unveiled a 1.35tn-peso (US$428mn) program aimed at financing projects intended to boost departmental and municipal economies in different sectors.

CHILE

Chile's banks reported profits of 2.40tn pesos (US$3.64bn) for 2018, up 4.10% from 2017.

EL SALVADOR

As El Salvador prepares for the first round of presidential elections on Sunday, former San Salvador mayor Nayib Bukele is poised to break roughly two decades of bipartisan leadership, nearing the finish line with strong leads in the latest voter surveys.