Credomatic de Guatemala, S.A.

What it is

Credomatic de Guatemala handles the consumer credit business for the BAC Credomatic financial group in Guatemala — originating credit through revolving credit cards — and is the only company within a Guatemalan financial group that also runs its own merchant-acquiring network, meaning it operates the terminals that accept cards at shops and restaurants.

The company’s legal domicile is the Department of Guatemala, with its main offices on Avenida Petapa, and it was incorporated in the Guatemalan Commercial Registry on 20 February 1976. Its parent group traces back further, to 1952, when Banco de América Central was founded in Managua, Nicaragua, before venturing into the credit card business under the Credomatic brand in the 1970s.

Who owns it

Credomatic de Guatemala sits inside a layered corporate structure. BAC Holding International Corp.

owns 100% of BAC Credomatic Inc., which in turn controls BAC International Bank Inc., a Panamanian bank, through which all Guatemalan subsidiaries — including Credomatic de Guatemala — are held.

Grupo Aval, the Colombian conglomerate, is itself controlled by the Sarmiento Angulo family, who indirectly own around 80% of its shares. In early 2022, Grupo Aval spun off a 75% stake in BAC Holding International to the shareholders of Grupo Aval and its subsidiary Banco de Bogotá, making BAC Holding a publicly traded entity in Colombia and Panama — though Credomatic de Guatemala’s own shares remain private.

Banco de Bogotá today holds approximately 31.4% of BAC Holding International directly, with Femisal S. de R.L.

holding approximately 37.4%, both entities linked to the broader Grupo Aval orbit.

Who runs it

The Guatemala group’s audited 2024 financial statements are signed by Lic. Luis Fernando Donis Cruz, Ing.

Luis Fernando Samayoa Delgado, and MBA Eric Campos Morgan, the officers responsible for the consolidated group accounts under Guatemalan Superintendency of Banks rules. The broader BAC International Bank network has been led since 2016 by its President and CEO, who oversees the group’s six-country Central American operations.

Not published: The individual title (General Manager / Country Head) and the name of the CFO of Credomatic de Guatemala, S.A. specifically are not listed separately in the BVNSA prospectus, the 2024 audited consolidated statements, or the 2024 Corporate Governance Report (baccredomatic.com, April 2025). Guatemalan Junta Monetaria Resolution JM-62-2016 requires annual corporate governance reporting for financial groups, but officer-by-entity disclosure at the subsidiary level is not individually mandated in the public filings reviewed.

The money, in plain words

The consolidated Guatemalan group — Banco de América Central plus Credomatic de Guatemala plus BAC Valores — brought in GTQ 6.18 billion (~USD 811 million) in gross financial and service income in 2024, and kept GTQ 552 million (~USD 72.5 million) as net profit: a net profit margin of 8.9%, moderate for a credit-and-payments business that carries heavy loan-loss provisions. Guatemala’s banking sector as a whole posted a return on equity of 17.1% for 2024, so the group’s ~10.6% return on equity — the amount earned per quetzal that owners have put in (our calculation) — sits below the national average, partly reflecting the 2024 profit decline.

Profit fell roughly 12% from GTQ 630 million in 2023 to GTQ 552 million in 2024 (our calculation from audited statements), while Guatemala’s overall banking sector assets grew 9.7% year-on-year — so the group grew its balance sheet but not its bottom line. Non-performing loans in Guatemala stood at 2.43% of total credit, a figure the group’s own loan-loss charges of GTQ 767 million in 2024 reflect.

What it is doing now

BAC Credomatic serves 5 million customers across Central America with a team of more than 20,000 employees in the region, and positions itself as the leading financial group regionally. In Guatemala, Credomatic remains the sole group-linked company providing both credit-card origination and merchant-acquiring services, a dual role that gives it a structural advantage in the Guatemalan payments ecosystem.

Its presence on the BVNSA dates to May 2005, when it obtained approval to issue promissory notes (pagarés) up to GTQ 800 million, a ceiling later raised by GTQ 200 million in 2010 and the programme extended further in 2014 — meaning it uses the local capital market as a funding tool, not as an equity venue. At the group level, BAC International Bank ended 2024 with a return on assets of 1.9%, a healthy figure for regional banking.

What to watch

• Profit recovery: Net profit fell ~12% in 2024; whether the group can rebuild margins in 2025 — particularly by controlling the GTQ 766 million loan-loss charge — is the central financial question.
• Ownership clarity: BAC Holding International now operates as a publicly traded entity on Colombian and Panamanian exchanges, but any change in the Sarmiento Angulo family’s grip on Grupo Aval cascades down to this Guatemalan subsidiary.
• Regulatory environment: Guatemala operates 18 banks in a crowded market; any tightening by the Superintendencia de Bancos on consumer-credit provisioning would hit Credomatic’s model directly.
• Digital payments competition: BAC is the first financial group in the region to adhere to the UN Principles of Responsible Banking, signalling a push for brand differentiation — but fintech entrants in Guatemala are accelerating.

This is news, not investment advice.