Annualreport

Products and Services
During 2011, the Mercantil Banco subsidiary continued to offer products and services to fit
the needs of its clients. There were 3,840,000 clients at the close of the second half of the year
and 200,000 of these were new additions in 2011.
The strategy to include the unbanked sector of the population continued. The Mercantil Aliado
network exceeded 270 established alliances made up of Correspondent Desks and
Correspondent Trading Points, located within the vicinity of low-income communities in
Anzoátegui, Cojedes, Carabobo, Falcón, Yaracuy, Mérida, Nueva Esparta, Bolívar and Monagas
states. Operations and sales of products designed for this segment continued to increase,
thereby confirming the commitment to serve all segments of the population.
Mercantil Banco is reaffirmed as the pioneering bank in the financial system to implement
chip technology as a security mechanism in its debit and credit cards, ATMs and points of
sale. During 2011 the Bank concluded the process of incorporating secure chip technology
into more than 2.7 million debit cards and 1.2 million credit cards, as well as 1,300 ATMs and
51,200 points of sale nationwide. The adoption of this technology led to a significant reduction
in the rate of fraud due to cloning.
The strategy to encourage the use of Mercantil Credit Cards was maintained and the product
cross-selling initiative continued.
As of September 2011, the Custody and Mercantil Securities Account options are available on
line in the Securities section. The Custody option allows clients to display the securities held
in custody through the Custody Management service with Mercantil Banco (positions and
transactions) and the Mercantil Securities Account option gives them access to the different
formulas for carrying out operations with securities through the Mercantil Securities Account:
Auctions and Secondary Market.
In November the Bank, setting the pace for mobility, and on its way to becoming the leader
in the field of mobile banking platforms in Venezuela, launched its Mercantil Móvil application
for tablets with Android operating systems and for BlackBerry and Android smartphones,
through which access is provided to a subset of Mercantil Personal Online Banking operations
and also to Mercantil Banco value-added public information, such as addresses of offices,
trading desks, allies and Mercantil ATMs, campaign of the month, bank charges and
commissions, demos and tutorials.
Also in December the Password Management option was rolled out through Mercantil Call
Center's Automated System enabling clients to obtain information and/or create or change
their ATM and telephone banking passwords and unlock their Llave Mercantil Inteligente
(smart banking cards) quickly and securely without having to go into a branch.
14 Annual Report 2011