The Expansion Plan for the creation of a new network of Banco de Bienestar (BaBien) branches has not progressed as expected by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, since, until last year, only 14 of the 2,700 new branches that were to be operational by the end of 2022 are operating normally.
As stated in the Fourth Government Report of President López Obrador, in order to strengthen the creation of BaBien, an expansion plan was established for the network of branches in areas or regions that demand priority attention, as well as with the development of new technologies to promote the use of electronic transactions in financial services and the dispersion of resources.
Said expansion plan proposed the creation of 2,700 new BaBien branches, considering two stages, the first the construction and operation of 1,000 branches during 2021, and the second with 1,700 branches for 2022.
However, of the 1,000 branches planned for 2021, only 14 have been launched. While, until June 2022, the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) completed the construction of 1,581 branches.
Due to the above, in January of this year the government of President López Obrador updated the Expansion Plan for 2020-2023, which postpones until 2023 the construction of the total of 2,700 new branches of the original plan; this when considering the construction, equipment, qualification and start-up of 1,986 branches during 2022 and 700 more branches in 2023.
The Government Report details that, in total, from September 2021 to June 2022, 516 branches have been opened, which includes 14 new ones, all of them equipped with an ATM and in less than a year, BaBien doubled the network of branch offices. As of June 30, 2022, it had a total of 949 branches, which include 433 branches of the previous network, plus 516 branches of the Expansion Plan that were inaugurated.
Meanwhile, 301 are under construction and 182 have a viable property and are waiting to start construction. These activities are covered by various Specific Collaboration Agreements entered into with Sedena.
At the end of June 2022, through the bank, resources were dispersed to 13.02 million unique beneficiaries, which implied 19.7 million dispersions for 99,279 million pesos in support.
