About

Esteemed in-house counsel Belisario Castillo Sáenz has gained much attention for the changes he has implemented at Banco Panameño de la Vivienda (Banvivienda), a well-established Panamanian bank offering personal, private, commercial and agricultural banking services. Castillo impressively started his career as senior corporate counsel at Panama’s national bank at the age of 31 and is now leading a team of three lawyers and two assistants. As secretary of the board for the bank’s three subsidiaries, he also leads a brokerage house, a global fiduciary services group and a leasing group. One of the projects he has been tasked with is the automation of the bank’s most important processes, including the protection of intellectual property and how it manages legal documentation. Prior to joining Banvivienda in 2013, Castillo served as the executive manager of legal advice and the secretary of the board of directors at Banco Nacional de Panama, the country’s central bank. There he worked on the Financial Stimulus Program, a plan to reinvigorate Panamanian banks with over a billion dollars in cash during the 2008 world financial crisis. His notable work earned him a standout reputation in the financial sector and in 2010 he was invited to join UniBank, a Panamanian Private Bank. He went on to serve as the vice president of legal and compliance for three years where he was responsible for creating the legal function, which gave him experience of developing a team for a new bank. Castillo is also the second vice president for the Latin American Committee of Financial Law (COLADE), a committee dedicated to bringing together legal professionals at Latin American banks and part of the Latin American Federation of Banks (FELABAN).