Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA is boosting its Spanish private banking operations at a time when rich Latin Americans are shifting money to Madrid and banks are beefing up their teams and opening new offices to cater for super-wealthy clients.

Spain’s second-biggest lender has added 28 staff to its Spanish private banking team this year, with almost half of the additions to the now-101-strong team focused on ultra-high net worth clients with wealth of more than €10 million ($11 million), the bank said in a statement Thursday. Meanwhile, Brazil’s Banco BTG Pactual SA just opened an office in the upscale Madrid neighborhood of Salamanca.

With its sunshine and relatively safe streets, the capital has increasingly become a draw for wealthy Latin Americans, who have been transferring their wealth over to Spain.

Since 2020, Mexicans have spent more than €700 million in Spanish real estate and construction, according to government foreign direct investment data. Like other well-heeled Latin Americans, they’re pumping money into the city as they buy second or third homes and look to park their savings.

BBVA’s private banking unit in Spain has around 103,000 clients with assets under management of €100 billion. The bank late last year named Fernando Ruiz to head up the business.

BTG Pactual’s Madrid office has received €20 million to manage from a Latin American customer, Rogerio Pessoa, the bank’s partner responsible for the wealth-management and private-banking businesses, told Bloomberg in a recent interview.

Author: Macarena Muñoz