Vistra has launched a new business unit for the Latin America market, and this news service recently interviewed the executive appointed to lead it.

In a region such as Latin America which offers great rewards, it pays banks and other advisors looking for partners to have a boots-on-the-ground presence.

Vistra, a business services group, recently announced that it has launched Vistra Latam which, as its name implies, caters to the Latin America market. The new unit melds Vistra’s global operating platform with the in-country expertise of Biz Latin Hub, the business that Vistra acquired in early December 2025.

Raimundo Diaz (pictured below), executive vice president, Americas at Vistra, explained at the time of the launch that “Latin America is strategically important for companies looking to expand, diversify supply chains, access talent and build cross-border operations.”


Raimundo Diaz

This news service recently spoke to Diaz, who is based in Miami, about how he sees his role and the direction that Vistra is taking. 

“I was attracted by the idea that Vistra was coming to develop the region,” Raimondo Diaz said. “We do the work that clients don’t want to do.”

“Latin America is a region of high risk and high return,” he said. “You need to have some know-how and need to go [to Latin America] with a reliable partner, and that is why we are there. There is wealth in the region that is looking elsewhere and we are working with these people. The amount of money in Brazil, for example, is staggering.”

Diaz brings experience to the role. He is the former managing partner and founder of AMLA Services, a consultancy specialising in cross-border transactions and corporate services. Diaz has been chair of Ross PLLC – also based in Miami – and was head of Americas at TMF Group.

“We work with banks that work with family offices,” he said, asked about the family office market in LatAm. “We do the implementation: We create the entities, pay the banks and make sure they are compliant.”

About 550 people in the region work at/with Vistra – this is a substantial organisation.

“We have the services [at Vistra] that we need to have. The problem is that the market often does not know about it,” Diaz said. “This [strategy] is not about adding to the roster of services but showing clients and prospects that we can help beyond what they need help with.”

This news service spoke to Diaz at a time when, coupled with the kind of reforms mentioned here, there are also several European banks wanting to expand their work with Latin American HNWs, both onshore and offshore. Examples include Deutsche Bank, which WB interviewed earlier this year in Zurich. This  news service’s US correspondent also spoke to private bankers and wealth managers in Miami last year about the region.

There are tailwinds: estimates of the region's wealth pool vary depending on methodology, but the direction of travel is consistent. This year, Capgemini's World Wealth Report found that Latin American private wealth grew 5.1 per cent in 2025, taking the total to nearly $3.5 trillion, up from about $2.6 trillion in 2018. However, the number of high net worth individuals in the region rose just 0.3 per cent over the same period, well behind the 9.1 per cent and 9.4 per cent HNW individual growth seen in North America and Asia-Pacific respectively. 

Brazil and Mexico led the region's wealth expansion, at 6.0 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively, though Brazil's HNW individual population actually contracted slightly, a sign that gains have been concentrated among existing large fortunes rather than a broadening base of new wealth creators, the report said. 

The wealth management industry serving that pool is growing more modestly on some counts and more briskly on others, depending on how research houses define the market. Mordor Intelligence, for example, puts the region's wealth management market at $1.21 trillion in 2025, rising to an estimated $1.36 trillion by 2030, a 2.34 per cent compound annual growth rate, with Brazil alone accounting for roughly 53 per cent of the total and private banks still holding about 75 per cent market share. 

PwC, taking a broader asset and wealth management view that includes pension and insurance assets, has projected the figure surpassing $5 trillion, citing a 12.3 per cent compound annual growth rate of between 2020 and 2025 as pension funds, insurers and a rising middle class of savers fuel expansion. Independent asset managers and firms serving entrepreneurs and family businesses are seen as the fastest-growing segments, even as the region's private banking model remains dominant and firms such as Itaú, BTG Pactual and BBVA continue to lead the competitive landscape.

Reforms
Issues such as tax reforms in Brazil are conversation points, while Chile’s recent change of government and pro-business agenda is creating opportunities, Diaz said. 

Chile, for example, is streamlining lengthy mining and infrastructure permitting processes, boosting female labour force participation through childcare expansions, and shaking up pensions. The historical multifund pension structure has been replaced with "generational funds" that adjust investment risk based on a worker's age. It also mandates competitive bidding for portfolio management to reduce fees.

In Brazil, five consumption taxes are being consolidated into a unified framework with a standard target rate of around 28 per cent; a 10 per cent withholding income tax is being levied on profits and dividends paid abroad, ending a long-standing dividend exemption, and a minimum effective individual income tax rate and progressive rates of up to 27.5 per cent affecting Brazilian tax residents with annual incomes of over BRL600,000 ($118,274).

After a long period of not being investable, the changes taking place in Argentina have stoked a need for investment into the country, Diaz added, referring to the drastic cuts to debt and spending under current president Javier Milei, who is a fan of free market economics.

Vistra says its new business will serve three primary client groups: mid-sized US corporates entering Latin America through nearshoring, shared services or direct market entry; Latin American businesses establishing operations or hiring in the US; and European and Asia-Pacific multinationals seeking a coordinated regional partner as they scale operations across Latin America.