Who is Roberto del Cueto, the legal brain of the Bank of Mexico?

CITY OF MEXICO (Enlargement) – A lawyer who knew the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) before his independent activity, will bid farewell to the highest governing body of the entity on November 30: Roberto del Cueto Legaspi.

The reason: his state of health, Banxico explained in a statement on Wednesday .

Del Cueto is the only member of the board of directors not to be an economist of origin. He graduated in 1975 from the Escuela Libre de Derecho, alma mater of the former president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who appointed him in 2007 to return to Banxico as vice-governor, after a absence from the central bank since 1994, the year of its accession to autonomy.

And it is he who, finally knowing the law, has precisely coordinated the working group that drafted the constitutional reform initiative so that Banxico is autonomous. In addition, already with a place on the government office a few years later, Del Cueto also participated in the proposal of the current law of the central bank in May 2011.

Del Cueto has 32 years of experience in the entity. The first period includes from 1973 to 1994, before the autonomy of the monetary entity. Between 1990 and 1994, he was deputy director.

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The autonomy of Banxico implies that no government can demand that it allocates credits, but also administrative independence. Lopez Obrador said he would respect that autonomy, although there are lawmakers advocating for law reforms so that entity-managed international reserves be used for government investments.

In the middle of this exit and his return to Banxico, Del Cueto spent his time between the private banking sector, the public administration and the academy.

He was a Director of Banamex from 1996 to 1997, a director of Scotiabank Inverlat Financial Group and Chairman of its Risk Management and Audit Committees from 1999 to 2006. During those years, he was also Director of Center for Private Law Studies of ITAM. He has also taught at the Free of Derecho and at the Panamerican University.

From 1994 to 1998, he held the positions of Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Banamex.

He was also vice-president of the Bankers Association of Mexico (ABM) and in 2007 he chaired the National Banking and Securities Commission. Previously, between 1998 and 2006, he was a newspaper columnist Reform.

On July 4, 2007, the Senate approved the appointment of Mr. Del Cueto by President Felipe Calderón as Deputy Governor of Banxico. This period ended in 2014 and was then ratified by President Enrique Peña Nieto and approved again by the Upper House. .

His second term began on January 1, 2015 and will end on December 31, 2022.

"The Bank of Mexico thanks the Cueto graduate for his outstanding career of more than 30 years in the institution and regrets that his state of health does not allow him to complete the second period for which he has been named, "Banxico said in a statement.

This will leave a new vacancy in the governing body of this central bank, as Manuel Ramos Francia will finish his term as Alternate Governor in December. For this release, the future government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador will name the independent economist Jonathan Heath.

The main objective of Banco de México is to preserve the value of the currency by maintaining low and stable inflation. Next Thursday, it will announce its monetary policy decision, in which analysts expect a 25 basis point increase in its key rate, to 8%.

Roberto del Cueto was also to see and participate in the initiative of greater transparency in the decisions of Banxico.

An example: know the meaning of the vote of the five board members in their interest rate decisions . In the most recent one last October, Del Cueto was among the four who voted in favor of maintaining the reference rate at 7.75%. The dissident was his colleague Manuel Ramos Francia.

Del Cueto also saw the first female deputy governor: Irene Espinosa Cantellano.