Banco Itau Chile

What it is

Itaú Chile is a full-service commercial bank — the Chilean subsidiary of Brazilian giant Itaú Unibanco — with 168 branches in Chile and 68 in Colombia. It offers everything from everyday current accounts and mortgages to corporate lending, treasury services, insurance, and mutual funds.

Its deepest roots trace to 1871, when a group of citizens in Concepción — led by Aníbal Pinto, later President of Chile — founded Banco de Concepción, making it the oldest bank operating continuously in Chile. It merged with Corpbanca in 2016 and was renamed Banco Itaú Chile in 2023.

Who owns it

Banco Itaú Chile is a subsidiary of Itaú Unibanco Holding S.A., Brazil’s — and Latin America’s — largest bank by assets. The EODHD data shows insiders hold 71.5% of shares and institutional investors a further 21.1%, leaving a free float of roughly 7.4% (our calculation).

Control of Itaú Unibanco itself remains concentrated in IUPAR – Itaú Unibanco Participações S.A. and Itaúsa S.A., the holding vehicles of the Setubal-Villela and Moreira Salles founding families of Brazil.

Who runs it

André Gailey has been CEO of Banco Itaú Chile since 1 October 2024. Gailey has worked at Itaú for more than 20 years, most recently as regional CEO for Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

Emiliano Muratore took over as CFO of Itaú Chile in March 2025. He presents the bank’s quarterly results alongside Matías Valenzuela, Head of Planning and Corporate Strategy.

The money, in plain words

The bank earned CLP 428 billion (~US$472 million) in 2025 — up 13.7% from CLP 377 billion (US$416 mn) in 2024 (our calculation from structured data) — even as total revenue slipped 5.8% year-on-year (our calculation), meaning the bank is getting more efficient, squeezing more profit from each peso of business. For every CLP 100 (US$0.11)of owners’ equity, it generated about CLP 10 (US$0.01)of profit — a return on equity of 10.1%, solid for a mid-sized Latin American bank in a still-elevated interest-rate environment.

The bank sits on CLP 3.82 trillion (~US$4.21 billion) in cash and liquid assets, against total assets of CLP 43.9 trillion (~US$48.5 billion) and shareholder equity of CLP 4.31 trillion (~US$4.75 billion) (our calculations from structured data). At 10.1 times earnings, the shares trade at a modest valuation relative to history, and the bank currently pays no dividend.

What it is doing now

The most significant strategic move is a deliberate pullback from retail banking in Colombia, refocusing that operation on scalable corporate and wholesale business. In Chile, loan growth picked up pace in the second half of 2025, with commercial loans outperforming the sector and mortgage lending leading peer banks.

In April 2026, the bank reported that recurring net income hit a 10-quarter high and its credit rating was upgraded to AAA. Its core capital ratio — the cushion regulators require banks to hold — reached 12.2%, the highest in the bank’s history.

What to watch

• Colombia exit costs. The Colombia transformation project booked CLP 9.88 billion (US$11 mn) in non-recurring charges in June 2025 alone. How cleanly the retail exit is executed will affect margins over the next two years.
• Chilean interest rates. The bank’s net income from lending rises and falls with the Banco Central de Chile’s rate cycle; any cut compresses the spread it earns between loans and deposits.
• Parent strategy. Banco Itaú Chile is integral to Itaú Unibanco’s international growth plan. Capital-allocation decisions made in São Paulo determine how aggressively the Santiago subsidiary can grow.
• Free-float liquidity. With insiders and institutions controlling over 92% of shares, the stock trades thinly; any change in parent ownership can move the price sharply.

This is news, not investment advice.