A private banking institution operating in The Bahamas is looking to further expand its footprint into the Americas despite its already high concentration in that region. According to Steve Mackey, head of private banking and country manager for Credit Suisse (Bahamas), "the European market was traditionally where our wealthy clients came from, but the new wealth emerging from Latin America is where we will focus our activities in the future". Within the Latin American market, Mackey pointed out to Guardian Business how Brazil has emerged as a key market.

In all, he estimated that Latin America accounts for 60 percent of Credit Suisse's business. While business has been good for Credit Suisse locally, he admitted that issues like the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the financial crisis in Europe have caused the institution to change the way it is doing business. Mackey noted that the Swiss-based company has decided to spend more time on expanding markets like Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada. "We have a very large volume of Brazilian business via our wealth management business.

We are also focused on central and the northern cone of South America," he explained. "FATCA has been a tremendous drain on the whole global banking industry. It has increased the legal and compliance costs for all banking institutions." Despite these global setbacks, the Credit Suisse executive told Guardian Business that the firm is looking forward to growth areas. "I think locally we are doing quite well.

We are definitely having a decent year but a new environment for our business is that as the revenues from the offshore business change, you have to right size your business as well," he added. "We have started this process sometime ago to reduce our costs and to rightsize the business for the new generation of revenues. "Right now, our business is growing and we continue to invest in recruiting new bankers to expand our revenue base in Latin America."

Institutions like Winterbotham have also recognized the shift in business to Latin America. In fact, the company's CEO, Ivan Hooper, shared with Guardian Business that Latin America is just one of the emerging markets that the financial services industry will focus on. "Latin American is of interest to us here in The Bahamas because of its growth and the new wealth that's being generated because those economies are growing," according to Hooper. "There has been a transfer of wealth. We have a variety of tools that can be used, making it very interesting for us."

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