SCH readies Mexico tech center for 2004

06/02/2003 - Source: <a href=www.latintrade.com>LatinTrade - BNamericas Spanish financial group SCH (NYSE: STD) is likely to launch a new technological center in Mexico next year to expand the success of Altec, its Chile-based regional tech center, Altec CEO Patricio Melo told BNamericas. SCH launched Altec in 2001 and today the firm serves eight of its Latin American subsidiaries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Uruguay) with technological services from Santiago, Melo said. Altec's client list includes SCH's largest Brazilian bank Banespa, which was not initially planned, he said, adding that Banespa and the banking subsidiaries in Chile and Puerto Rico are the SCH units currently demanding most services from Altec. SCH chose to locate Altec in Santiago because of the city's comparative advantages in terms of telecoms and human resources, among other factors. The Spanish group has earmarked US$15mn investments in the first two years of operations, and expects annual cost savings of US$300mn-400mn when it is fully up and running. The great success of Altec in the region has prompted SCH to begin closing down a Madrid-based tech center that was serving Latin America, Melo said. The Mexico center is being created due to Altec's cost saving ability for the group in the region, and the large presence of SCH in the Mexican market, he said, adding the country has a great pool of talent in terms of human resources, which is expensive to transfer to Chile. Some 25% of Altec's 460 professionals have been brought in from SCH subsidiaries outside of Chile. SCH is yet to decide if the Mexican tech center will operate as an Altec competitor or subsidiary, Melo said, adding the latter is more likely. The Chilean center plans to hire another 30 professionals in the near future due to great demand from SCH subsidiaries for Altec's services, Melo said. In Chile, SCH controls the country's largest bank Santander Santiago (NYSE: SAN), which has some 28% of the local loan market. SCH is Latin America's largest financial group with 23 million clients and assets exceeded US$115bn. SCH also runs the largest banking franchise in Spain.