President José Antonio Kast sent the Senado (Chile's upper house of Congress) his two nominees for the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF), the body that supervises banks, insurers and the stock exchange, on Wednesday. The nominees are former minister Macarena Lobos and the fiscal (chief counsel) of the Asociación de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras (ABIF), the trade group that represents the banking industry.
According to Diario Financiero, La Moneda (the presidential palace) made the nomination official through a formal letter to the upper house. If the Senado confirms them, both will sit on the CMF board until 2032.
The two would replace Augusto Iglesias and Bernardita Piedrabuena. The Senado appointed them in 2020 at the proposal of Sebastián Piñera's government, and their six-year term is now ending. La Tercera reported that their term expires this Thursday.
Lobos is a lawyer who graduated from the Universidad de Chile and has a long career in the public sector. She was undersecretary and later minister of the Secretaría General de la Presidencia (Segpres, the ministry that handles the government's relations with Congress) under Gabriel Boric. Before that, during Michelle Bachelet's second government, she was undersecretary of Hacienda (Finance). She also served on the Consejo Consultivo Previsional (pension advisory council).
After leaving the Boric government, Lobos applied to become secretary general of the Senado, a post that ultimately went to Luis Rojas.
The sources differ on the second nominee's name. Diario Financiero identifies him as Juan Eduardo Laval Zaldívar, while La Tercera calls him Juan Esteban Laval. Both outlets agree that he is ABIF's chief counsel.
Laval has held that post since 2014. He is a lawyer who graduated from the Universidad Diego Portales and holds a master's degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington. From 2004 to 2012 he was chief lawyer at the Banco Central (Chile's central bank). Earlier he worked at the law firm Carey with banking clients, and he joined the association from the firm Larraín, Rencoret & Urzúa. He has also advised the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Segpres and the Ministerio de Vivienda (Housing Ministry).
The nomination needs the support of four-sevenths of sitting senators. That is why the government sought a balanced pair. According to La Tercera, the executive considered Óscar González, general manager of BancoEstado under the previous government. It dropped the idea because the opposition did not see him as one of its own.
In practice, the formula pairs a former official of the previous government with a lawyer who knows from the inside the industry he will have to oversee. For you, as a bank customer or saver, the CMF board sets rules and sanctions that affect that market.
If the Senado confirms them, Lobos and Laval will join Beltrán de Ramón, Osvaldo Adasme and the commission's chair, Catherine Tornel. No date has yet been set for the vote.
