Caja de la Sierra Gorda will be revoked between doubts and an almost bankrupt savings insurance fund

The popular financial society (sofipo) Caja de la Sierra Gorda will be revoked after 15 years of operations under this figure and thus begins the end of another chapter within the popular savings and credit sector where there will be various indications, but in the end it remains It has been shown that the main affected parties will be, as in these cases, savers who trusted an entity that, despite being supervised, failed to safeguard their assets.

It was in November of last year when the governing board of the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) agreed to revoke the authorization granted to sofipo, due to the fact that for several months it failed to comply with the level of capitalization required for these entities, which is above 130%; however, it was only on January 6 when the entity headed by Jorge Cruz Ortega that it would be revoked, that is, more than a month was allowed to pass to notify him that he would have to close operations.

Although in recent months it was when the situation of this sofipo worsened, due to defaults with its savers, for years, specifically as of 2018, the entity already registered the same problems for which it will only be revoked.

To try to get back on track, the entity began with a media repositioning strategy and also added as an ally generate more to have a greater capture, a platform that works as an intermediary for different financial firms to be able to bring them more clients, especially for savings and investment issues.

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From 2009 to 2018, the board of directors of this sofipo was headed by Carlos Noriega Curtis, who served in this administration as head of the Insurance and Bonding Unit of the Ministry of Finance.

In October 2018, both Noriega Curtis and the sofipo were sanctioned; the manager at that time, for not recording a variation in the asset in the accounting, for which he was fined 306,000 pesos and the entity for not complying with the required capitalization levels. Currently, these sanctions no longer appear on the portal of infractions of the CNBVwithout specifying why.

A Chronicle of a Death Foretold

In February 2022, the entity was officially classified in category number 4 of the early warning scheme regarding its level of capitalization, so the authority began with a more detailed supervision scheme.

In various requests for information, the CNBV It has reiterated that it has acted in accordance with the law in the supervision of this entity, ordering various measures such as the removal of its board of directors, as well as the pause in its operations that imply the outflow of resources.

Likewise, it was also prevented from making any payment to its shareholders due to dividends, nor any investment or act that implies a transfer of patrimonial assets.

However, despite the fact that the entity reported that it was looking for fresh capital, with the possible arrival of new investors, it was never able to materialize this.

At the same time, its level of capitalization deteriorated and in October 2022 it presented an index of -6,160.62 percent. Within what the authority has highlighted, is that this entity was able to make its financial statements transparent, which show that as of last September 30 it had a deposit balance of 158 million pesos and a credit portfolio of 197 million pesos, of which 87% correspond to overdue financing.

Likewise, the authority identified inconsistencies in the submission of its regulatory reports, as well as operations that deviate from the regulatory provisions, which complicated the process of supervision and reliability of the information received by the authority. CNBV.

First-class and second-class savers?

In this administration, the CNBV has revoked three sofipos: Planfía, COFIA and Operadora Reforma. Of these processes, only Operadora Reforma had to activate the sofipos protection fund, which protects savers for up to 25,000 Uids, that is, up to 190,000 current pesos.

However, in this process, the Sofipos Protection Fund (Prosofipo) was unable to meet its obligations to savers and only liquidated a part of the insurance, since it ran out of resources and was waiting for a contribution from the Ministry of Finance to cover with that obligation.

With the savers of Caja de la Sierra Gorda, the scenario seems to be similar, since until the publication of this note it had not been confirmed whether they have sufficient resources to meet, at least, the insurance obligation.

According to information from the Condusef, Caja de la Sierra Gorda has a total of nine branches distributed in Baja California Sur, Mexico City, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Puebla and Querétaro.

In total, the entity has 18,334 registered savers, which will have to detail how many are savers and how many accredited.

Now, with the revocation of Caja de la Sierra Gorda, the following questions remain in the air:

• How many savers will be harmed by the revocation?
• Why did it take so long to revoke this entity?
• Are there similar cases in the sector that put savers’ assets at risk?
• Was nothing learned from the Ficrea case?