Context: How Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (bvc) works, and what it makes issuers disclose · Colombia on the LatAm Power Map
Banco Popular S.A. was born in Bogotá in 1950 as a lender to pensioners, teachers and soldiers — the people Colombia’s bigger banks often ignored. Seventy-five years on, it is still that bank, now pivoting hard to serve what it calls the silver economy: Colombians over 50, whose spending power the bank calculates exceeds US $580 billion a year across Latin America.
| Full name | Banco Popular S.A. |
| Ticker / exchange | POPULAR — Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (BVC) |
| Headquarters | Calle 17 No. 7-43, Bogotá D.C., Colombia |
| Sector | Banking / Financial services |
| Employees | ~4,600 (standalone bank) |
| Market value (market cap) | ~COP 958 (US$0.29)B (~US $290M) at COP 124 (US$0.04)/share (BVC, Jan 2026) |
| Yearly sales — standalone bank net interest + fee income (FY2024) | Not published as a single “revenue” line under Colombian IFRS bank reporting; see “The money” section below |
| Consolidated total assets (FY2025 / FY2024) | COP 91.6 (US$0.03)T / COP 88.4 (US$0.03)T (US $27.8B / US $26.8B) |
| Standalone bank total assets (H1 2025) | COP 32.1 (US$0.01)T (US $9.7B) |
| Consolidated net profit (FY2025 / FY2024) | COP 1,191 (US$0.36)B / COP 534 (US$0.16)B (US $361M / US $162M) |
| Net profit attributable to Banco Popular shareholders (FY2025 / FY2024) | COP 48.6 (US$0.01)B / COP −316.1B (US $14.7M / US −$95.8M) |
| Return on equity — standalone bank (H1 2025) | 0.7% annualised (ROE) |
| Return on assets — standalone bank (H1 2025) | 0.1% annualised (ROA) |
| Solvency ratio (H1 2025, Basilea III) | 11.8% total; 10.1% core capital |
| Loan quality — past 30 days (H1 2025) | 3.0% of loan book |
| Dividend yield | No dividend paid (bank in profit-recovery phase) |
| Website | www.bancopopular.com.co |
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What it is
Banco Popular S.A. is a Colombian private-sector commercial bank with more than 70 years in the financial market. It operates through 178 branches across Colombia, offering the full range of banking services.
The bank has built its franchise around pensioners, teachers, formal-sector workers and the armed forces — segments that value steady, relationship-based service over digital novelty. Its product range spans debit and credit cards, savings and current accounts, CDT term deposits, voluntary pension funds, housing and consumer credit, insurance, cash management, commercial loans and financial leasing.
What makes Banco Popular unusual as a listed bank is its structure. It belongs to Conglomerado Financiero Aval, one of Colombia’s most significant financial groups and a leading banking group in Central America by assets.
Through its own balance sheet, the bank holds a large stake in Corficolombiana, a diversified financial and infrastructure conglomerate — which is why the consolidated group’s COP 91.6 (US$0.03)T (US $27.8B) in total assets dwarfs the standalone bank’s COP 32.1 (US$0.01)T (US $9.7B).
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Who owns it
Banco Popular is a subsidiary of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores, Colombia’s largest banking holding company, which in turn is controlled by the Sarmiento Angulo family — one of Latin America’s most prominent business dynasties. A recent shareholders’ assembly, presided over by CEO María Fernanda Suárez, approved a COP 100 (US$0.03)B new share issuance, passing with 94.8% of capital represented — a figure that shows how completely Grupo Aval commands the register.
Not published: the precise percentage held directly by Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores in Banco Popular S.A. is described in the bank’s own quarterly filings and the Grupo Aval 20-F only as “participación mayoritaria” (majority stake); a breakdown by named shareholder was not reproduced in the financial statements or the Q2 2025 quarterly report reviewed. The bank’s filings are filed with Colombia’s Superintendencia Financiera under Ley 964 de 2005, which requires disclosure of shareholders above 10% — those granular tables were not available in the documents retrieved.
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Who runs it
María Fernanda Suárez Londoño, age 51, has been president (CEO) of Banco Popular since 2023. She is a former Colombian Minister of Energy, serving in that role between 2018 and 2020, and was appointed by Grupo Aval.
Her background spans CEO of Accenture Colombia, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Finance at Ecopetrol, and senior roles at the Ministry of Finance, Porvenir, Citibank and Bank of America.
The 2024–2025 board includes former deputy ministers of Energy and Finance, a former Trade Minister, a former Ecopetrol technology executive, and veteran finance-sector directors — a lineup that reflects the bank’s deep ties to the Colombian state and its pension-teacher-government clientele. Women hold 33% of board seats, a threshold recognised by Colombia’s “Club del 30%” gender-parity initiative.
The legal representative signing the 2025 consolidated accounts is Diana Constanza Polanía Ruiz.
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The money, in plain words
Understanding Banco Popular’s numbers requires separating two things: the standalone bank (what most investors care about) and the consolidated group (which includes Corficolombiana’s infrastructure revenues and makes the totals look much larger).
The standalone bank is in recovery mode. In 2025, the bank celebrated its 75th year in operation, continuing to implement its strategic initiatives with a clear focus on its target customer segments, building a more robust balance sheet and improving operational efficiency.
For the first half of 2025, the bank reported a return on assets (ROA) of 0.1% and a return on equity (ROE) of 0.7% — extremely thin for a bank, but a meaningful improvement from the −9.1% ROE and −0.8% ROA posted at year-end 2024, when the standalone bank was loss-making.
The consolidated group swung to a net profit of COP 1,191 (US$0.36)B (US $361M) in FY2025, up from COP 534 (US$0.16)B (US $162M) in FY2024 — a gain of 123% (our calculation). Of that, only COP 48.6 (US$0.01)B (US $14.7M) belongs to Banco Popular’s own shareholders; the rest flows to the minority shareholders of Corficolombiana.
In FY2024, the bank’s attributable result was a loss of COP 316 (US$0.10)B (US $95.8M), so this turnaround is the headline story.
The standalone bank’s loan quality improved markedly: as of mid-2025, the commercial loan past-due rate was 1.81% and the consumer loan past-due rate was 2.97% — well below the levels that triggered large provisions in 2023–2024. As a member of Grupo Aval, the bank benefits from shared technology infrastructure, ATM networks and operational synergies across the group’s four Colombian banks.
The share price tells its own story: over the past year, Banco Popular’s stock fell 38%, and the shares hit an all-time low of COP 124 (US$0.04)in August 2025 — a level at which the market cap of around US $290M values the bank at a significant discount to its standalone book equity. That is what a loss-making turnaround in a high-interest-rate Colombian economy looks like priced in real time.
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What it is doing now
The most strategically significant move is the bank’s deliberate pivot toward Colombia’s over-50 population — what it calls the “silver economy” or economía plateada. The bank is investing COP 120 (US$0.04)B (US $36M) over the next five years to build products, digital channels and in-branch models tailored specifically to this demographic.
In May 2025 it relaunched its brand around the tagline “El banco para el mejor momento de la vida” — the bank for life’s best chapter.
On capital, the bank raised fresh equity in mid-2025. The shareholders approved a COP 100 (US$0.03)B (US $30M) ordinary share issuance via public offering, and from the consolidated equity statement the bank raised COP 50 (US$0.02)B net through a new issuance by December 2025.
In June 2025, the bank’s controller resigned; the board appointed Giselle Tocora González as the new controller effective July 2025.
The bank’s trust subsidiary, Fiduciaria Popular, complements and cross-sells alongside the core banking offer. BRC Ratings–S&P confirmed the bank’s subordinated bonds at AA+ in July 2025 — investment-grade, a floor that matters for wholesale funding costs as interest rates in Colombia begin to ease.
This is news, not investment advice.
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