Andrés Lerner 
Foreign Minister Diana Mondino signed the Decree of Necessity and Urgency that deregulates financial activities, together with the rest of the cabinet’s ministries. The regulation affects different sectors of the economy, including the financial one. But according to Argentina’s Central Bank, the foreign minister is the main shareholder of Roela Bank, together with her brother Guillermo Mondino. A report from a risk rating firm published on December 15 confirms the bank’s shareholding structure hasn’t been modified.
The Civil Association for Equality and Justice (ACIJ) stated that Mondino “should have excused herself.” The NGO Poder Ciudadano said that the anti-corruption office must analyze the case.
President Javier Milei announced on national television that he had signed a DNU that, once in force, will repeal or modify a total of about 300 laws. Among them are several laws that Congress passed unanimously. The decree focuses on deregulating a series of economic activities, such as energy, mining, industry, commerce, real estate, and finance.
On this last subject, the decree eliminates the upper limit on rates chargeable to businesses, removes the punitive interest cap on credit card debt, and eliminates sanctions for businesses that fail to report their interest rates. It also takes away registered workers’ options to open a free wage bank account and extract cash with no charge, while also opening the door to the privatization of Argentina’s Banco Nación.
According to the BCRA website, at the time the DNU was signed, Mondino was still the main shareholder of Roela Bank, owning 49.61% of the capital. Her brother Guillermo Mondino owns the same amount, while the remaining 0.78% belongs to shareholding groups.
Sources within the monetary authority confirmed to Ámbito that, at the time of writing, the shareholding composition remained the same. Likewise, a report by risk rating agency Evaluadora Latinoamericana dated December 15 reflects that a majority of the company’s capital is still equally divided among the Mondino siblings.
Ezequiel Nino, a specialist in transparency issues and co-founder of ACIJ, said to Ámbito that “in accordance with the current rules on conflicts of interest, the foreign minister should have excused herself from signing the portions of the DNU that dealt with the banking activity in which she has a financial interest.”
The decree’s impact on the sector is still being debated. “The subsequent effects are always counterfactual, but that is not the point. The point is that she is legislating on an issue in which she is an interested party,” a judicial source with experience in the matter told Ámbito.
On one hand, the elimination of the cap on punitive interests and the potential privatization of Banco Nación could favor private financial entities, but it is also true that deregulation could imply greater competition with fintech companies since employers would now be able to deposit their employers’ salaries through them. In any case, the fact that Mondino signed a decree with consequences for the regulation of the banking sector while she is herself the majority shareholder of a bank raises questions.
Sources from the transparency foundation Poder Ciudadano pointed out that “the situation should be monitored” and that “the anti-corruption office should assess the issue in depth and determine whether it represents a conflict of interest.” Last Friday, the NGO issued a press release warning about the DNU damaging the separation of powers.
While the Foreign Ministry has no direct influence on most of the articles of the decree, Mondino had to sign it due to Article 99 of the Argentine Constitution. The article in question states that a DNU “will be decided upon by a general agreement of ministers and must be endorsed together with the Chief of Staff.”
Sources close to the minister rejected the idea of a potential conflict of interest. Although they did not specifically refer to the DNU, they said that so far the banks are on the losing side of Milei’s model, thanks to the elimination of the Leliq and the lowering of rates. According to them, as a result of this, in the last Treasury bond placement, the banks received a lower interest rate than what they pay their clients on fixed-term deposits.
The origins of Roela
Víctor Mondino acquired Roela in 1961. At the time, it was a financial company owned by a clinic and a group of healthcare professionals. In 1978, he obtained permission to establish it as a banking entity. According to its website, the firm has been working “for more than 60 years to find appropriate solutions to the reality of each person, company, and business” and is characterized by a “prudential” policy.
Diana Mondino has been bank president and has also held various other leadership positions. In the last change of authorities, the minister was removed from the board. However, she retained the majority shareholding, and her husband, former Secretary of Economic Policy during the Menem adminsitration, Eugenio Pendás, remained as deputy director.
The term “conflict of interest” returned to the spotlight between 2015 and 2019, when managers of relevant companies in different sectors of the economy held hierarchical positions within the state and made decisions of questionable legality. The law that regulates these cases is “Public Ethics Bill” #25,188. Among other things, it states that officials must not “receive any improper personal benefit associated with the performance, delay, or omission of any action that is inherent to their roles, nor impose special conditions that result in the same.”
