Rabobank, the Dutch food and agribusiness lender, has agreed to buy 100% of Chile’s HNS Banco. In the last five years, Rabobank has expanded its agribusiness focus to finance the agricultural producer in the US, Brazil and Chile, says Guillermo Bilbao, the bank’s managing director for Latin America .

 

“With that client it is clear we need more banking products such as current accounts and overdraft as well as our traditional longer-term financing products,” Bilbao says. “We also need to be close to rural customers and can’t function from just one central location.”

 

Rabobank addressed this by opening offices in rural centres in Brazil, while in Chile the bank identified HNS, which has offices throughout the country and a full suite of short- term bank products, including leasing and factoring for the small and medium-sized enterprise market. Banco HNS “represented a very good complement to our operations in Chile from a product, client and geographical perspective,” Bilbao summarises. It’s “overall an excellent fit with great promise.”