Career Biography

My name is Fernando Carmash Cassis joined BCI in 1987. After some years, in 1993, I started managing the Agreement and Contract Division within BCI´s Legal Department, in 2011 assumed as head of the Corporate & Investment Banking Legal Division, and since 2016 served as BCI´s General Counsel. Before joining BCI, I worked as a lawyer for the Valdivia´s Mayor Office and the Legal Department at the Dirección del Trabajo (Labor Office) in Santiago. I am a lawyer graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and I have a Master in Economics and Management for lawyers from Universidad Gabriela Mistral, and a Postgraduate or Management Development Program from the Universidad de los Andes. I also hold diplomas in Artificial Intelligence and Law, and Data Protection from the Catholic University Santiago.

Have you had any experiences during your professional career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

The most interesting have undoubtedly been my participation in multiple bilateral and syndicated loan agreements for the bank’s clients and in conjunction with other banks to carry out large infrastructure projects, and my participation in the negotiation and acquisition of Banco Conosur, which later became Banca Nova de Bci, and my negotiation and participation in the acquisition of Banco City National Bank and Totalbank in the State of Florida, now merged and a subsidiary of Banco Bci.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services instead of handling matters internally, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

Basically, specialisation in the subject matter and having dedicated teams monitoring certain large-scale projects.

Looking ahead, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape over the next 5 to 10 years that companies should prepare for?

Looking ahead, we will see an increasingly volatile environment, with new institutions and legislation coming into effect in the country, such as the open finance system or open banking, all the data protection regulations, and the start of operations of the authority responsible for directing all the institutional framework and legislation on data protection in Chile. And we have to deal more frequently with AI.