financial conglomerates – i.e. a group of companies under common control whose exclusive or predominant activities consist of providing significant services in at least two different financial sectors (banking, securities, insurance, pensions) – dominate the financial system<sup>12</sup> . The most important financial conglomerates are controlled by domestic mixed-activity economic groups. The two main groups (Aval and Sindicato) each own several financial institutions and together represented half of total bank assets as of December 2005, up from 31 percent as of the end of 1998.

**Table 5: Five Largest Firms by Market Segment (2005)**

|**Ranking by Size**|**Banks**|**CFCs**|**Fiduciarias**|**Comisionistas**|**Insurance**|**Pensions**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|1<br>2<br>3<br>4<br>5|Bancolombia<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Banco de Bogota<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>BBVA<br>Banco de Occidente<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Banco Agrario<br>(State-owned)|Suleasing<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Leasing Colombia<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Leasing de Occidente<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Leasing de Credito<br>(Helm Financial)<br> <br>Sufinancimiento<br>(Grupo Sindicato)|Fiducolombia<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Previsora<br>(State-owned)<br>Fiduciaria Bogota<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Fiduoccidente<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Fidupopular<br>(Grupo Aval)|<br>Interbolsa<br>(independent)<br> <br>Inversionistas de<br>Colombia (independent)<br>Correval<br>(independent)<br>Suvalor<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Alianza<br>(independent)|Suramericana Vida<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Vidalfa<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Suramericana Generales<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Bolivar Vida<br>(Grupo Bolivar)<br> <br>Previsora<br>(State-owned)|Porvenir<br>(Grupo Aval)<br>Proteccion<br>(Grupo Sindicato)<br>Horizonte<br>(BBVA)<br>Colfondos<br>(Citigroup)<br>Santander|
|**Market Share of**<br>**Top 5**|**52%**|**58%**|**56%**|**52%**|**40%**|**93%**|

_Source: Superintendencia Financiera and own analysis. Note: Size is based on total assets (banks and CFCs), annual debt and equity buying volumes (comisionistas de bolsa), total assets under management (fiduciarias), total life and non-life assets (insurance), and total AFP assets under management (pensions)._

**Table 6: Entities Controlled by Largest Financial Conglomerates (latest available)**

|**Market Segment**|**Grupo Aval**|**Grupo Sindicato**|**Grupo Bolivar**|**Government of**<br>**Colombia**|**BBVA**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Bogota, Occidente, Union|||||
|**Banks**|Colombiano, Popular,<br>Megabanco, Av. Vilas|Bancolombia|Davivienda|Agrario, Granbanco|BBVA|
|**CFs**|Corfivalle|Colcorp||||
|**CFCs**|Leasing del Valle, Leasing<br>Bogota, Leasing de Occidente,<br>Leasing Popular|Comercia,<br>Sufinanciamiento,<br>Leasing Colombia,<br>Suleasing|Leasing Bolivar|Leasing Bancoldex||
|**Fiduciarias**|Fidupopular, Fiduvalle,<br>Fiduoccidente, Bogota,<br>Fiducomercio, Fidunion|Fiducolombia|Fiduciaria Davivienda,<br>Fidusuperior|Fiduciaria Previsora,<br>Ffiducafe, Fiducentral,<br>Fiduagraria, Fiducoldex|Fiduciaria BBVA|
||Casa de Bolsa, Valores Bogota,|||||
|**Comisionistas**|Valores de Occidente, Valores<br>del Popular|Suvalor|Davivalores||BBVA Valores|
|**Sociedades de**<br>**Capitalización**||Capitalizadora<br>Suramericana|Bolivar|||
|**Insurance**|Vidalfa, Alfa Generales|Suramericana Vida,<br>Suratep, Suramericana<br>Generales|Bolivar Vida, Bolivar<br>Generales|Previsora Vida,<br>Previsora Generales|BBVA Vida, BBVA<br>Seguros|
|**Pensions**|AFP Porvenir|AFP Protección|||AFP Horizonte|

_Source: Superintendencia Financiera, own analysis. Note: All firms controlled by a financial conglomerate (the Government of Colombia is included here) are shown per market segment._ Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), in order to take forward the work of the Tripartite Group on a range of issues relating to the supervision of financial conglomerates.

12 The dominance of financial conglomerates in the securities markets is much greater than the figures shown by comisionistas de bolsa, since the total 2005 debt buying volumes by banks (most of which are owned by financial conglomerates) was double the volume of comisionistas.

14