NAFINSA was essential to Mexico’s development process. It served as the financial agent of the Federal Government and provided preferential access to long-term finance favouring selected business interests and groups. With the Washington Consensus, its tasks were reduced to correcting for market failures, becoming a complement to commercial banks, and focusing on attending the market segments falling outside the scope of commercial bank activity (notably SMEs). Although it appears as a successful story of institutional transformation, on closer inspection, NAFINSA has not been able to overcome key obstacles and its success in alleviating credit restrictions is very limited. NAFINSA must recover some of its functions, prerogatives, and responsibilities as a policy bank to become relevant in strengthening financial intermediation for capital formation.
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