Banco de Credito e Inversiones

What it is

BCI is one of Chile’s biggest banks – it does the everyday work of lending, current accounts, cards and mortgages for more than 6 million customers. It holds roughly a fifth of all bank assets, loans and deposits in Chile.

What makes it unusual is how far it has travelled. Today about 37% of the bank’s assets sit abroad, mainly in the United States and Peru – so it is no longer just a Chilean story.

Who owns it

This is, at heart, a family bank. The Yarur family’s holding company, Empresas Juan Yarur SpA, holds about 55% of the voting shares, which leaves the rest – the free float – in the hands of outside investors.

Those outsiders are mostly large funds. The structured data shows insiders own about 64.5% and institutions about 25.3%, meaning ordinary public shareholders hold a thin slice.

A 2015 clean-up made Empresas Juan Yarur the sole parent and ensured no other party holds more than 5% of the voting shares.

Who runs it

The family chairs the board, but a generation has changed hands. In a planned succession, Luis Enrique Yarur Rey handed the chairmanship to his son, Ignacio Yarur Arrasate, after 33 years in the role, effective January 2025.

Ignacio Yarur, a lawyer, joined the family company in 2004 and has run retail, wholesale and private banking as well as the digital transformation. Day-to-day, the chief executive is Eugenio von Chrismar, who took the top job in 2015 with a mandate to push digital change and international growth, having joined BCI in 1999 as finance chief.

The board keeps refreshing. In March 2026 the board named Susana Jiménez Schuster as a director, replacing Juan Edgardo Goldenberg Peñafiel.

The money, in plain words

The bank earns well. In 2025 it kept about 30 cents of profit from every peso of income – a net profit margin near 30.5% (our calculation), strong for a bank.

Growth is steady rather than spectacular: income rose from CLP 3.03 trillion (US$3.34bn) in 2024 to CLP 3.26 trillion (US$3.60bn) in 2025, up about 7.9% (our calculation). First-quarter 2026 net income rose 5.3% from a year earlier, with profit margin climbing to 42% on lower expenses.

For every peso owners put in, the bank earns about 14 back a year – a return on equity of 13.8%, solid but not flashy. The shares trade at 13 times yearly profit (a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.0×), a modest valuation, and pay a dividend yield of 2.54% – smaller than many Chilean peers.

What it is doing now

The big bet remains the United States. BCI was the first Chilean bank to buy a foreign bank’s holding company, when it acquired Miami-based City National Bank of Florida, since followed by other Florida lenders.

That bet now drives a large share of profit. By 2025, City National Bank of Florida represented close to a third of consolidated net income – so a slowdown in Florida would be felt sharply in Santiago.

What to watch

• The Florida engine. With roughly a third of profit coming from one U.S. subsidiary, U.S. interest rates and credit quality now matter as much as Chile’s economy.
• Family control. The 55% Yarur stake means minority investors follow the family’s lead; the smooth father-to-son handover suggests stability, but concentration is a permanent feature.
• The dividend. The payout record has been uneven, with a past annual drop of over 20%, so income-seekers should treat the 2.54% yield as variable.

This is news, not investment advice.