page_title: Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz
section_title: Banco Mercantil
hierarchical_section_title: Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz / History / Banco Mercantil
caption_attribution_description: Español: Foto del Banco Mercantil, obra de Emilio Villanueva
context_page_description: Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz S.A. doing business as Mercantil Santa Cruz is a Bolivian bank and financial services company with headquarters in La Paz. As of 2015, Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz is the largest bank in Bolivia by assets. It is a full-service corporation that provides a wide range of financial products and services to an individual and corporate client base through a national network of operating 93 branches, more than 350 ATMs, call centers, and online and mobile banking platforms.
  Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz was created in 2006 by the merger of Banco Mercantil and Banco Santa Cruz, which began operations in 1905 and 1966 respectively.
context_section_description: The history of Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz dates back to December 11, 1905, when Simón I. Patiño, a Bolivian magnate who was among the world's wealthiest people at the time of his death, founded Banco Mercantil. Its headquarters were established in Oruro, which at that time it was the main mining center of Bolivia. The bank was set with an initial capital of physical gold worth £1,000,000, which were transferred from London to Oruro. Under those conditions, Banco Mercantil opened its doors to the public on December 1, 1906, also inaugurating branches in La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre, Potosí, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Antofagasta. In 1907, Bolivia suffered an economic downturn due to the global financial crisis that occurred that year. As a result, many mining companies, which played a significant role in the businesses of the bank were forced to close. After the crisis, Patiño made a significant increase of capital to the bank in order to save it from bankruptcy. By 1910, Banco Mercantil became Bolivia's largest bank, surpassing the older Banco Nacional de Bolivia.
  In 1926, Banco Mercantil moved its headquarters to La Paz, the country's seat of government. The bank, which was primarily created to do businesses with the mining industry, reached its peak in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1947, Patiño passed away and his heirs transferred their shares to the Fundación Universitaria Patiño, a philanthropic organization. In 1968, all the bank's shares were subsequently sold to a group of private investors in Bolivia. Until 2006, Banco Mercantil was Bolivia's largest private bank.
caption: Historical building of Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz in La Paz, Bolivia.
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