Peru · BANKING
Key Facts
- —Conversion The BCP Miami branch replaced the bank’s Coral Gables agency in July 2026.
- —Approval The Federal Reserve Board cleared the state-licensed branch on 24 April 2026.
- —Deposits The branch may take wholesale money, but no insured retail accounts under US$250,000.
- —Scale BCP held S/218.3 billion (US$65.2 billion) in assets on 30 June 2026.
- —Peers Florida hosted 12 foreign bank branches or agencies in March 2026, nine Latin American.
The BCP Miami branch can now bank companies incorporated in the United States.
Banco de Crédito del Perú said on 27 August 2026 that its Miami operation now runs as a bank branch. The BCP Miami branch replaced an agency that Florida licensed back in 2002.
What changed in Coral Gables
Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP) said on 27 August 2026 that its Miami office had become a bank branch. The switch took legal effect in July, the bank said.
The office sits in Coral Gables, a city inside Miami-Dade County. It has worked there since Florida authorised it to transact business on 3 September 2002.
Until July that office was an agency, which is a narrower licence than a branch. The BCP Miami branch now carries the wider one.
Mark Talbot, chief executive of BCP Miami, said the change lets the bank serve more companies. He set a target of roughly 100 new corporate clients by 2027.
Why an agency is not a branch
United States law draws a hard line between the two forms. The International Banking Act of 1978 defines each one separately, and the wording matters.
An agency may lend money, pay checks and hold credit balances for clients. It may not accept deposits from citizens or residents of the United States.
A branch, under the same statute, is simply an office at which deposits are received. That single difference is the whole point of the July conversion.
A representative office is narrower still, and books no business at all. It markets, refers and gathers information, and nothing else.
Press releases in both languages tend to blur the three labels together. Regulators never do, and the licence decides what the office may sell.
The deposit line, and where it stops
Credicorp’s annual report is blunt about what the licence buys. It says the branch may accept wholesale deposits from US sources for the first time.
Wholesale is the operative word here, because the BCP Miami branch is not insured. Since December 1991 no foreign bank has been able to open a new insured retail branch.
To hold small retail accounts, a foreign bank must build or buy an insured US subsidiary. Anything below the insured ceiling of US$250,000 stays off limits to a branch.
So the office is a corporate and treasury shop, not a consumer bank. Savers in Florida will see no new deposit product from it.
The published product list fits that reading. It covers corporate accounts in dollars and euros, payments, treasury products and company lending.
Who signed off, and when
The Federal Reserve Board approved the application on 24 April 2026. Its weekly record of board actions files the item under banks, foreign.
The entry reads as approval to establish a state-licensed branch in Coral Gables, Florida. Credicorp’s annual report calls it the group’s first branch in the United States.
The Florida Office of Financial Regulation issues the state licence itself. That office supervised the old agency too, alongside the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
BCP has published no staffing number for the BCP Miami branch. Its statement also gave no assets figure and no target balance sheet.
How big the Peruvian parent is
BCP ranks first among Peru’s commercial banks by assets, loans and deposits. That ranking comes from the Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP, Peru’s banking and pensions regulator.
The bank holds close to 29% of Peruvian bank loans and 33% of deposits. In wholesale banking alone its loan share reaches 37.2%.
On 30 June 2026 BCP on a stand-alone basis held S/218.3 billion (US$65.2 billion) in assets. Its parent Credicorp reported S/282.8 billion (US$84.5 billion) on the same date.
Both conversions use the Banco Central de Reserva del Perú rate of S/3.348 per dollar on 27 August 2026. BCP alone made up 75.6% of Credicorp’s assets at the end of 2025.
Credicorp is registered in Bermuda and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BAP. It owns 97.74% of BCP together with its subsidiary Grupo Crédito.
The United States pieces the group already had
Coral Gables is not Credicorp’s only address in the United States. Credicorp Capital USA sits in Miami, with sister firms in Miami and Coral Gables.
The Federal Reserve renewed its clearances for those securities units on 26 February 2026. They do advisory work and riskless principal trades, and they take no deposits.
Offshore, the group runs ASB Bank Corp, which absorbed Atlantic Security Bank of the Cayman Islands in 2021. The surviving company is Panamanian and is supervised in Panama.
BCP has also run a branch in Panama for years, well before the Florida change. The Miami office joins an existing chain of offshore and onshore units.
Miami’s crowded Latin American banking row
Foreign banks have run Florida offices for decades, and the Federal Reserve counts them every quarter. On 31 March 2026 the state held 12 branches or agencies of foreign banks.
Nine of those 12 belonged to Latin American banks. They came from Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, and all were uninsured.
The biggest of the 12 was Banco de Sabadell of Spain, with US$11.5 billion in assets. Itaú Unibanco of Brazil followed at US$6.9 billion, then Chile’s Banco de Crédito e Inversiones.
BCP’s Coral Gables agency held US$635 million on that date, a modest figure beside them. The BCP Miami branch starts from that base.
Peruvian dollars, and the deal still pending
Peruvian companies bank heavily in dollars, and that is the demand this licence targets. Dollar loans were 26.1% of lending by Peru’s main private lenders at the end of 2025.
Deposits are more dollarised still, at 35.28% of the commercial banking system in December 2025. Total bank deposits then stood at S/394.5 billion (US$117.8 billion).
A second United States move is still waiting. In December 2025 BCP agreed to buy Helm Bank USA of Miami for US$180 million.
Helm Bank carries Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation cover and held US$1.2 billion in assets on 30 June 2026. Credicorp filed for Federal Reserve clearance in May 2026, and none had appeared by late August.
That purchase, if cleared, would give the group the insured retail arm a branch cannot be. Until then the Coral Gables office remains a wholesale house for companies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the BCP Miami branch take deposits from the public?
It can take wholesale deposits, but it is not insured, so retail accounts below US$250,000 are barred. United States law has blocked new insured foreign bank branches since December 1991.
Who approved the conversion, and when?
The Federal Reserve Board approved it on 24 April 2026, and Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation issues the state licence. The office began working under the new form in July 2026.
Is this a brand new office in Miami?
No, it is the same Coral Gables address that Florida licensed as an agency in 2002. Only the licence changed, which is why the branch can now bank US companies.
Connected Coverage
Peru Asks Congress for 120-Day Legislative Powers Over Tax and Security
Sources
- www.federalreserve.gov
- www.federalreserve.gov
- www.federalreserve.gov
- www.sec.gov
- www.sec.gov
- andina.pe
- gestion.pe
- forbes.pe
- www.fundssociety.com
- www.law.cornell.edu
- www.law.cornell.edu
- www.law.cornell.edu
- api.fdic.gov
- estadisticas.bcrp.gob.pe
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