Diego Ocampo, senior director and sector lead for corporate ratings, and Alfredo Calvo, senior director and sector lead for financial institutions ratings, both at S&P Global: “In our view, the challenging economic conditions represent a major risk for Latin American banks. Slower economic growth, persistent inflation and high interest rates are eroding households’ disposable income, and corporations are dealing with increasing costs and diminishing capacity to pass through prices. Under these complex conditions, banks in the region are tightening their already conservative lending policies to protect their balance sheets. In this sense, we expect credit growth will moderate through this year amid sluggish economic growth in the region and cooling credit demand. Access to debt markets remains very challenging for Latin American corporations. The amount of cross-border debt issued by Latin American corporations through May was below 2022 standards, (a year that had the record of lowest issuances since…”