The culture of informal work is a topic that Peru’s new president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is promising to tackle, and which banks are already addressing through financial inclusion initiatives such as the creation of a pioneering, sector-wide e-wallet. Silvia Pavoni investigates its potential to ease one of the country's main pressure points.

In September, Peru risked losing its emerging market status and being downgraded to frontier by stock indices provider MSCI. Lima bourse’s chairman, Christian Laub, explains what it would have meant to the country – and how it managed to hold on to its rank.

The Banker’s Top 200 Latin American banks ranking for 2014 sees Brazilian institutions stay on top, while Argentina maintains its status as most profitable, despite mounting challenges. 

Peru's economic growth may be slowing, but its bank are still turning in impressive results. The big opportunity on the horizon, however, is the launch of a cross-bank digital payment platform, which could bring a considerable increase in the country's financial inclusion levels.

Peru's new finance minister, Alonso Segura, is keen to push ahead with plans to diversify the country's economy, reduce informality and finally move banking into the mobile area.

Peru's stellar economic performance over the past decade hit a bump in 2013 as a result of the US quantitative easing programme. However, the country's central bank governor sees this as a temporary setback, and reports that the Peruvian economy is back on the track towards long-term growth.