SMEs in Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean continue to strengthen their competitiveness amid evolving economic and regulatory landscapes.

Regional Winners

Latin America | BTG Pactual Empresas

BTG Pactual Empresas has devoted significant resources to its dual-platform strategy for digitalization. This strategy offers advanced application programming interface (API) connectivity for customers who want it, and it offers a powerful automation platform for less technologically sophisticated clients. What does this mean? Clients employing IT teams can utilize the bank’s API to connect directly to the bank’s systems, thereby accessing financial information and automating tasks. Concurrently, the automation platform offers a more straightforward and userfriendly way for everyday users to connect with bank resources. According to BTG, this strategy provides “technical depth with market breadth.”

In either case, automating tasks is a significant end goal of these digital offerings. For example, SMEs can use the bank’s CashIn/CashOut APIs to reduce manual treasury processes by up to 60%. This is just one of 45 automations offered by the bank’s platform. Other digital offerings help automate reconciliation; manage membership plans; create payable QR codes for invoices; and speed payments to suppliers, taxing agencies, and utility companies. The platform also connects SME clients to more than 150 strategic partners, including enterprise resource planning providers, B2B marketplaces, and payment facilitators.

Central America | BAC Credomatic

BAC Credomatic has a reputation as a significant SME lender in Costa Rica. In recent years, the bank has invested in digitalization programs. Among the results is MiPOS, a Bluetoothenabled portable credit card reader that makes it easier for SMEs to accept credit card and contactless payments. Compra-Click empowers small retailers to sell products through social media sites. Additional products help SMEs conduct the business of business.

The bank’s SME platform helps businesses manage payrolls, pay suppliers, and conduct wire transfers. As a result of these offerings, more than 62% of the bank’s customers now use digital channels. Of all of those digital users, 79% conduct monetary transactions digitally.

The bank also offers advisory and educational programs, with special programs devoted to women entrepreneurs. One of its advisory services focuses on digital transformation and helps SMEs digitalize their own operations.

Early in 2025, BAC Credomatic issued $140 million in sustainable bonds in Guatemala, that nation’s first such offering. The bank now plans to issue an additional $500 million in sustainable bonds in that country. 

Caribbean | Banreservas

Banreservas’ SME lending portfolio grew 29% from 2024 to 2025. The increase occurred, in part, through the issuance of 22,151 new loans totaling $718.6 million. The bank now commands 27% of the SME market in the Dominican Republic, and SMEs account for 17% of Banreservas’ total business.

The bank reports that SMEs are the primary source of job creation in the Dominican Republic, accounting for nearly 62% of total employment. Banreservas strives to identify and meet the banking needs of this group. The dedicated SME business division offers targeted services to key sectors of the nation’s economy, including tourism, agriculture, construction, health care, education, and manufacturing.

Special programs offered to this sector include Fomenta Pymes (meaning “Promotes SMEs”). This program provides small businesses with access to a range of financing options, including credit cards, management services, payroll services, and other benefits. Special events include months-long loan fairs through which SMEs shop for financing. Banreservas’ Coopera program promotes economic development through social projects for the production of goods and services in vulnerable communities. In 2024, the program trained 3,295 national producers from 65 social enterprises.

In recent years, Banreservas has implemented a significant digitalization program, which includes offerings from start-ups in which the bank has invested. Among them is MelizAI, a platform designed to maximize the productivity of the customer sales team. Meanwhile, Campo Moderno’s offerings use technology to advance precision agriculture.

Operating in the Dominican Republic since 1941, the bank has established a strong reputation for its antibribery and anticorruption practices. It also organizes conferences to promote integrity and security in the nation’s financial system.