Bolivia has hundreds of different financial institutions, but only 12 multipurpose banks are allowed to operate in the country by the regulatory institution ASFI. These are called “multipurpose banks” as they offer a wide range of services that include giving loans, creating checking and savings accounts, making wire transfers, etcetera.
Bolivia has 12 major multipurpose banks currently available that offer a full range of services you may expect to get from a major bank in any country to both natives and foreigners. Each one of these banks normally has tens of agencies and from 100 to 500 ATMs available across the country.
We are citizens and business experts from Bolivia, so we’ll give you all the details about the principal banks available in our country and how the bank system works here. You’ll also know which services these banks offer also to overseas people and the impression they’ve given to us as Bolivian clients.
How does the banking system work in Bolivia?
Bolivia has 12 major Banks currently operating within the country. These are full financial institutions that offer a wide range of services, like checking and savings accounts, different types of credit loans, money transfers, wire transfers, insurance, access to capital markets, etcetera.
There are also another couple of hundreds of minor financial institutions that normally offer little loans in exchange for watches, gold, and precious metals, social funding for non-profit organizations, social help for certain communities, funding and operational capital for little companies etcetera. But such entities aren’t among the principal Banks of Bolivia.
Both Bolivians and foreigners can use a wide range of financial services that major banks in Bolivia commonly offer, as we discuss in the next section.
Services that Bolivian banks offer to people from overseas
Remember that, without being at least a temporary resident of Bolivia, you can’t open a bank account here, nor use almost any bank service beyond ATMs for Visa and MasterCard. You need a Foreigner ID to access the main bank services in Bolivia, and to get this document, you need to be at least a temporary resident, not just a tourist.
According to Bolivian law, people from overseas have the same rights as Bolivian citizens, in any area including in financial matters. So for you, it’s completely legal to get banking services in Bolivia without becoming a Bolivian citizen, but you need at least to be a temporary resident.
Then, as a foreigner, after becoming a temporary or permanent resident, you can open a check or savings account in Bolivia. To do this, the bank employee will ask you to present your foreigner ID, and in many cases, your residence permit, and also to deposit some money in the new bank account, in general, a few tens or hundreds of dollars.
Once you open a bank account in Bolivia you can get a Bolivian debit or credit card that will be supported by either Mastercard or VISA. You can use this card to make withdrawals from the Bank’s ATMs itself, but also from any other ATMs within Bolivia for a small additional charge of $0.2.
Bolivian Banks can give you a loan of different kinds including a home, a business or a consumer loan. But you’ll need to have at least a temporary residency here and also some formal job or income in the country.
You can use your foreign Mastercard or VISA card in any ATM available in Bolivia.
All the major Banks available in Bolivia (full list)
There are only 12 major banks in Bolivia, which by the way attend to almost all Bolivians in the country:
- Union Bank (Banco Unión)
- Mercantil Santa Cruz Bank (Banco Mercantil Santa Cruz)
- BNB Bank (Banco Nacional de Bolivia BNB)
- Credit Bank (Banco de Crédito BCP)
- Bisa Bank (Banco Bisa)
- Fassil Bank (Banco Fassil)
- Fie Bank (Banco Fie)
- Ganadero Bank (Banco Ganadero)
- Economic Bank (Banco Económico)
- BancoSol Bank (Banco BancoSol)
- Prodem Bank (Banco Prodem)
- Fortaleza Bank (Banco Fortaleza)
1) Union Bank
The Union Bank is the only bank that belongs to the government of Bolivia, and it’s also the second largest in the country. This is a government bank that is responsible for:
- Attending and paying public employees.
- Running different social credits and loans.
- Starting government projects and social-economical projects.
- Managing accounts and funds of other public institutions.
- Also, attending private clients and companies in normal banking operations.
Before 2010, this bank was a private company, but the Bolivian government acquired it in order to improve the management of its financial resources and government projects.
This is a large bank, and one of the most important in the country, which is expected, as it’s a government-supported Bank. But from our experience, this bank generally offers good enough services to both common corporate and personal clients.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 412 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa)
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 219 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 412 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800102872
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2161717
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 156 Libertad St.
La Paz branch: 1544 “16 de Julio” Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 725 Ballivian Ave.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
2) Mercantil Santa Cruz Bank
This is the largest bank in Bolivia, also the 93rd largest in South America, and it has been like this since more than a decade ago. This bank is the result of a merging process of 3 prior banks. In 2007 there was a merger between the Santa Cruz Bank and the Mercantile Bank, years later, in 2015, the resultant bank also absorbed Los Andes Bank.
The Mercantile Santa Cruz Bank is also rated as the 2nd financial strongest bank in Bolivia by the CAMELs rating standard system applied in the country.
Is worth mentioning that we, as a business, also use this as our principal bank when it comes to making money transfers, wire transfers, and having savings accounts. Why? Because we’ve found that this bank has a little bit lower commissions for different services. Also, we’ve seen that it has plenty of ATMs available across most urban areas.
If you want to know how to open a bank account in Bolivia as a foreigner, visit our dedicated guide, which has all the requirements and steps: How to open a bank account in Bolivia? A complete guide.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 505 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 180 physical agencies around the country.
- Use its 505 ATMs around the country.
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591-2) 2114010
Secondary phones: (+591-3) 3114010, (+591-2) 4114010
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 154 Junin St.
La Paz branch: 295 Ayacucho St.
Cochabamba branch: O-201 Nataniel Aguirre St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
3) BNB Bank
The BNB bank, maybe the best Bolivian bank for general banking services (according to the CAMELS rating) and the 3rd largest bank of Bolivia, offers a wide range of services for both national and foreign clients.
This bank is more focused on large private companies that exist in Bolivia, and also on high-income clients and formal employees who want the best and most expedited banking service available.
This bank, like any other in Bolivia, offers a wide range of services, including checking and savings accounts, credit cards, business loans (mostly for large companies), consumer loans, different types of money-transferring systems, etcetera.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 379 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 81 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 379 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 78787272
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2313232
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 258 Rene Moreno St.
La Paz branch: 1296 Camacho Ave.
Cochabamba branch: E-198 Nataniel Aguirre St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
4) Credit Bank
The Credit Bank is also one of the 5 largest banks in Bolivia and one of the 250 largest banks in South America, being in the 150th position. It’s a subsidiary of the Credit Peruvian Bank and has been operating in the country since 20 years ago, offering also decent general banking services. We can’t qualify this bank as great or bad, it’s just a regular major bank in Bolivia.
The Credit Bank also has been priced for being the bank with the best digital services of Bolivia, by Global Finance in 2020.
We have seen that this bank has a good balance between all its types of clients and services, corporate clients, personal clients, small and big clients, everything. We haven’t seen it stand out in any particular area or service, but just good enough in providing all of these financial services.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 300 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 80 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 300 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 72002244 (WhatsApp)
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2114141, (+591-3) 3114141, (+591-3) 4114141
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 158 “24 de Septiembre” St.
La Paz branch: 1308 Colón St.
Cochabamba branch: S-0498 Nataniel Aguirre St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
5) Bisa Bank
The Bisa Bank is also one of the 5 largest banks in the country and the 147th largest bank in South America and offers decent banking services in all areas. This is also a multipurpose major bank that can handle any of your financial and banking needs as a resident of Bolivia.
We have found that this bank doesn’t really offer the best virtual experience, in both its phone application and its virtual platform. We used to use it as our principal bank in the past, but because of its bad quality of virtual services, we just moved to another one.
Anyway, we think that this Bank, along with the other first ones on this list, is of the best 5 banks in Bolivia. So, whenever it’s necessary, you should consider using this bank as one of your principal options.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 339 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 82 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 339 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591-2) 2152222
Secondary phones: (+591) 67000053, (+591) 50850015
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: Monseñor Rivero Ave.
La Paz branch: 1628 “16 de Julio El Prado” Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 799 Ballivian Ave.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
6) Fassil Bank
Warning: Fassil Bank is going through deep legal and financial troubles
Ask for May 2023, Fassil has been immersed in huge troubles, such as illegal use of funds, and irresponsible managers, deceiving or just fake contracts, and similar very serious offenses. So it has been intervened by the government and the ASFI entity, and many of its executives have been arrested.
We don’t recommend you use this bank anymore for anything, until the Troubles it’s going on become solved.
This is also a major Bank in the country that offers all the services that you may need as a resident in Bolivia. This is a relatively new bank, founded in 2014, but it has experienced very fast growth, to the point that now it’s the 165th largest Bank of South America.
Fassil Bank is still not really present in the minds of Bolivians. For us, as citizens of Bolivia, it’s not the default bank to go to, we just prefer the banks that are first in this list.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 312 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 179 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 312 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800123737
Secondary phones: (+591-3) 3158000
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 4210 Cristo Redentor Ave.
La Paz branch: 2519 Arce Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 508 Nataniel Aguirre St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
7) Fie Bank
The FIE Bank (Banco FIE) it’s a relatively smaller bank in our country. It’s not a bad entity, it offers everything you may need as a Bolivian or resident. It is a multi-purpose bank that offers the full spectrum of banking services.
When we used this bank, what we regularly noticed was the lack of enough ATMs available for use. We struggled more than one time to rapidly find an ATM near our location when we used this bank.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 208 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 145 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 218 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800101112
Secondary phones: (+591) 71526237 (WhatsApp)
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 31th Block 5th Ring, Cristo Redentor y Banzer Ave.
La Paz branch: 2652 “6 de Agosto” Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 169 Jose de la Reza St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
8) Ganadero Bank
The Ganadero Bank is another major yet smaller bank in Bolivia. Despite this, it managed to be one of the 250 largest banks in South America. Additionally, JP Morgan recognized it with the “Elite Quality Recognition Award 2021” for its labor in supporting foreign trading with JP Morgan.
We’ve seen that the Ganadero Bank is mostly focused on corporate and also formal employees that require loans of different types. Also, we’ve noticed that its loan interest rates are a little bit higher. Moreover, it normally comes later when innovation occurs in financial services and it doesn’t have a lot of ATMs available.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 160 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 37 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 160 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800103939
Secondary phones: (+591) 72103001 (WhatsApp)
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 99 Bolivar St.
La Paz branch: 1372 Camacho Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 174 Ayacucho Ave.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
9) Economic Bank
The Economic Bank is another important, but smaller, multipurpose bank that operates in Bolivia. This entity also doesn’t stand out in any financial area or service and is not one of the first options that Bolivians normally go to when they need financial services.
We as clients haven’t seen any advantage of using this bank against the first ones in this list. What we remember is it implemented prepaid debit cards back in 2011 and was the only bank that had this option. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but this bank has been rated among the 25 most innovative Banks in South America (Fintech Americas rating).
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 146 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 47 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 146 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 62046840 (WhatsApp)
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2155200, (+591-3) 3155500, (+591-4) 4155500
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 166 Ayacucho St.
La Paz branch: 296 “6 de Agosto” Ave.
Cochabamba branch: S-0459 Nataniel Aguirre St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
10) BancoSol Bank
The BancoSol Bank is a smaller bank in Bolivia that is heavily focused on giving loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs (PYMEs as called in Bolivia) ranging from $10,000 to $1 million in total assets. But also, it offers the full range of services that any multipurpose bank normally has in Bolivia.
We haven’t seen any kind of advantage when using this Bank versus the first ones in this list. If you have a small business or company in Bolivia, this entity could be one of your first options to get a loan for this business. As personal clients, we have noticed the lack of enough ATMs from this bank throughout the country.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 202 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 102 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 202 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800102929
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2176900
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 36 Buenos Aires
La Paz branch: 289 Nicolas Acosta St.
Cochabamba branch: 631 Esteban Arze St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
11) Prodem Bank
This is a relatively new bank that operates in Bolivia and is not very well positioned in the minds of most Bolivians, also not being a too preferred bank for them. It is not well known in the country, despite being a relatively large bank, also its virtual services are not the best ones out there.
We, as Bolivians, but not actually as current or past clients, think that this bank is just a good financial institution that offers normal financial services and doesn’t really stand out in any particular area. Nevertheless, this entity is gaining popularity and weight at a fast rate.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its 178 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account
- Open a savings account
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 135 physical agencies around the country
- Use its 178 ATMs around the country
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591) 800109797
Secondary phones: (+591-2) 2126700, (+591-3) 3113689, (+591-4) 4259190
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Non-existent
Santa Cruz branch: 674 Arenales St.
La Paz branch: 520 Belisario Salinas St.
Cochabamba branch: 164 Calama St.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
12) Fortaleza Bank
The Fortaleza Bank is the smallest in this list but is already available in all the main cities of Bolivia. It’s still growing and increasing its market share in our country.
We have used this bank before and it really stands out for giving regularly much higher interest for savings accounts and fixed-term deposits than other banks, with interest rates ranging from 3.5% to 6.5% for most of them. Anyway, it’s very difficult to find an ATM in this bank around the cities and also it doesn’t offer advanced virtual services.
In this bank, just as a tourist, you can:
- Use its <100 ATMs around the country (with MasterCard or Visa).
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
In this bank, as a resident with a foreigner ID card, you can:
- Open a checking account.
- Open a savings account.
- Make worldwide wire transfers
- Get various types of loans
- Get a debit or credit card (with Visa or MasterCard withdrawal support)
- Use its 39 physical agencies around the country.
- Use its <100 ATMs around the country.
- Send/receive money through Western Union, MoneyGram, and similar services
Principal phone: (+591-2) 2317211
Secondary phones: (+591-3) 3322929
Facebook: Fanpage
Bank app: Play Store, App Store
Santa Cruz branch: 140 Gabriel Rene Moreno Ave.
La Paz branch: 1440 16 de Julio Ave.
Cochabamba branch: 739 Ballivian Ave.
Agencies and ATMs’ list (non-translated, translated)
Foreign banks available in Bolivia
At this time in Bolivia, there’s no foreign Bank available and operating that belongs to a first-world country. Citibank was the last bank that had a branch here, but it closed its doors back in 2010.
Instead, now we have the presence of only 1 foreign bank, but it comes from another South American country:
- Banco de la Nación Argentina, from Argentina.
In Bolivia, this bank usually only attends to corporate clients and is not open to personal ones, offering also a very narrow range of banking services in the country.
Conclusions:
In this article about the most important banks of Bolivia, you just got a full detailed list of the 12 main multipurpose banks operating here in the country. You’ve seen every detail about each one of these financial entities, including their contact details and how we rate their services as Bolivian clients.
You’ve seen that each one of these banks offers a wide range of services to people from overseas, but only when they are at least temporary residents and have their foreigner ID card, including creating checking and savings accounts, making money transfers, providing MasterCard and Visa debit and credit cards and offering services in tens of agencies and several hundreds of ATMs across Bolivia.
Finally, you’ve learned that it’s possible to use a foreign Mastercard or VISA card at any ATM in Bolivia. Also, you can get a debit card after opening a checking or savings account in our country, and this card can be used in any ATM in the country, including in ATMs of other Banks for a small extra fee of around $0.2 per transaction.
We hope this information has helped you, and if you want to open a bank account in Bolivia as a foreigner and want to know all the detailed requirements and steps, visit our dedicated guide in the following direction: How to open a bank account in Bolivia as a foreigner? A complete guide.
BolivianExperts.com, information about how to live, work, invest, and travel in Bolivia.
