Farid Matuk: “SBS has to be closer to citizens”

For the economist and international financial consultant, Farid Matukthe Superintendence of Banking, Insurance and AFPs (SBS) must reinforce its regulatory work in the national financial market, to the point where citizens feel they have someone to trust, feel that the regulator is closer to citizens, and that they Seek their support in any situation of abuse of the dominant position of the banks in the face of the hundreds of thousands of financial clients in the country.

In an interview from Tripoli (Libya), for the LR+ Economy program of the Republic, the expert warned that in Peru it has never been seen or heard that the SBS has applied a “substantive sanction” to any entity of the financial system, as it did happen always in the largest financial markets such as the United States or the United Kingdom.

“At this point, we have to see if the morality of the Peruvian bankers is higher than that existing in the United States or the United Kingdom, or if the regulatory capacity of the Peruvian regulator is inferior to that of those countries,” said Matuk, not without first arguing that in Peru there is still a sense of citizen dissatisfaction about the role of banks.

Although he highlighted the professional, outstanding and efficient work carried out by the SBS in combating money laundering through the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the also former head of INEI and current international consultant for the Central Bank of Libya He indicated, however, that this entity needs to reinforce its work in pursuit of achieving a balance, in which there is no more dominant position of the banks, and that the clients do not feel tiny in front of them.

“It is undeniable that there is an oligopoly in our banking system, there is concentration, as is also the case in other sectors (in the case of mobile telephony, for example), which is why it is important that for there to really be competition for the benefit of customers, the regulator it must limit the capacity of intervention in the market to prevent situations of abuse”, he maintained.

Matuk indicated that the citizen deserves to feel that the State, through the banking regulator, is doing its best (within a social market economy) to protect them.

He added that there is a key aspect in which the regulator must refine its work and locate the underlying problem: assess whether the problem is one of high existing interest rates, assess what variables are defining the application of interest rates, the financial risks of the clients as such, and the position (of abuse) of the banks. “You have to work well there, and that seems to be missing,” he pointed out.

To this, he added that the regulator also has the task of explaining to the population how much is too much or how much is too little in terms of setting interest rates, applicable to savings and loans. “It is time to explain what the limits of reasonableness are, as occurs in the case of taxes,” he stressed.

On the other hand, Farid Matuk warned that it is not convenient that there continue to be “two windows” for complaints so that the clients of the financial system can complain: the SBS and Indecopi.

“The client does not know where to go. Either I complain at one door, or I complain at the other. There must be clarity for the citizen in the face of a problem that arises with his financial entity, and he is forced to present two complaints, before SBS and also before Indecopi. It is time that there is a single door or a single window, with less time to resolve claims and lower costs for customers, ”he explained.

The interview with the economist Farid Matuk was conducted on LR + Economy, the economic program of the newspaper La República, which is broadcast from Monday to Friday at 9:05 am and is hosted by the journalist from this publishing house, Rumi Cevallos. You can see the full interview by clicking HERE.