Marlene Garayzar, president of the Mexican Association of Popular Financial Societies (AMS), said that sophipos are more than CAME, the financial company that broke and left customers without their money.
“Today sophipos are more than CAME, just as there are 37 active and solid popular financial companies, regardless of the (CAME case),” said the agency’s representative, where companies such as Finnsus, Klar, Nu, Stori and Kubo are affiliated.
Came is not part of the Sofipos association, he clarified.
He said that any entity with a legal problem with the authorities by statutes cannot be part of the organization.
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“There is a confidence of the savers and customers that remains, because we are a solid and close sector with our clients, there is also a confidence that has been built for years,” he said.
On April 9 Came, with more than 30 years in operation, restricted its operations at 50 branches and evicted the one that for years was its headquarters in the Colonia del Valle, in Mexico City.
He also stopped reporting operational information to the qualifying agencies, which already had it under negative observation due to the deterioration of their indicators.
Came was located as the eighth largest sophipus in the sector measured by number of assets, with 1.3 million customers, of which it is not yet known with certainty how many are savers.
Two months after Came’s problems became evident, the CNBV Governing Board agreed to the intervention, in order to suspend its operations and safeguard the interests of its savers.
“We are more than a sofip and it is an unfortunate case, so we are going to wait for the resolution of the authorities,” said the founder of Stori.
He added that Came’s bankruptcy has not reduced the collection and the interest of savers in sophipos grows, despite the reduction of interest rates in Mexico.
Marlene Garayzar recalled that sophipos attend to the population that needs credit access and that is not among future banking clients, nor are they part of their business nucleus.
“We are redoubling efforts in money laundering prevention and we announce that all sophipos signed an agreement with Ofac, which commits us to have controls and monitoring of money laundering,” he said.
He explained that they are working to have more money laundering prevention controls in all sophipos.
“Many tasks are being done inside the sophipos and by the hand of the Mexican authorities,” he said.
Miriam Chávez, general director of the Mexican Association of Popular Financial Societies, explained that the agreement signed with the OFAC allows us to consult the lists of the companies considered part of the framework for money laundering and terrorist financing.
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“Part of money laundering prevention is transversal, because the entire sector has the same regulation and Finn is an international organism and we adopt it as best practice,” he said.
The agreement signed with Ofac means that “we are forcing ourselves, even if it is not an obligation of Mexican regulation to consult the List of the Ofac.”
He said that many affiliates of the Mexican Association of Popular Financial Societies consulted the Listas de la Ofac as part of good practices.
“The first commitment to the user is that (the association) be clean of such things,” he said.
