Credicorp
NYSE: BAP
$388.77 ▲ +1.14  (+0.29%)
At close: Jul 24, 2026 · 3:59 PM UTC
Financial Ratios
Market Cap30.93 Bn
P/E4.51
P/S2.93
Div. Yield0.00
ROIC (Qtr)0.01
Total Debt (Qtr)1.51 Bn
Add ratio to table…

About

Credicorp Ltd. is a financial services holding company that coordinates and manages the business plans of its subsidiaries to develop Universal Banking, Microfinance, Insurance and Pensions, and Investment Management and Advisory operations across Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Panama, and the United States, while also overseeing its corporate venture capital initiative Krealo. Credicorp Ltd. generates revenue primarily through net interest income from lending activities,…

Read more ↓
Sector: Financial Services Industry: Banks - Regional CIK: 0001001290

Investment Thesis

▲ Bull case
  • Credicorp is fundamentally underestimating the scalability and monetization velocity of its Yape ecosystem, which has evolved from a payment app into a data-rich neobank unit with accelerating cross-sell potential. Despite Yape generating 17% of group fee income and contributing 8% to risk-adjusted revenues in Q1 FY26, management’s public guidance still targets only 10% of risk-adjusted revenues from disruptive initiatives by year-end, signaling a lag in recognition of actual traction. The platform’s 16.4 million monthly active users—covering 82% of Peru’s economically active population—transact an average of 67 times per month, with revenue per user surging 65% year-over-year while expense growth per user remains subdued at 26%, demonstrating powerful operating leverage. Credit penetration has reached 30% of MAUs, yet lending revenue grew 3.6x year-over-year, indicating that the underbanked segment is being served at scale with improving risk-adjusted returns. Crucially, Yape Bolivia has surpassed 2 million users in a smaller market, proving the model’s exportability, and the newly formed neobanking unit consolidates Yape Peru, Yape Bolivia, Tenpo (Chile), and Eo under unified technology and data infrastructure, enabling rapid international replication. This structural shift positions Yape not as a feature but as a platform capable of becoming a dominant financial super-app across the Andean region, with monetization levers still in early stages. The market is pricing Credicorp as a traditional bank with digital adjuncts, but the reality is a platform business where user engagement, data network effects, and low-cost customer acquisition are driving exponential revenue growth in high-margin verticals like lending, utility payments, and insurance distribution—areas where Yape’s contribution to group profitability could exceed 30% by 2028 if current trends persist, implying significant upside to ROE guidance. Management’s reluctance to revise medium-term targets post-election reflects prudence, but the underlying dynamics suggest the group’s sustainable ROE could structurally reset toward 22–24% as Yape’s contribution matures, a shift not yet reflected in consensus estimates. The decoupling strategy is working faster than anticipated, with innovation portfolio revenue already at 9% of risk-adjusted revenues and tracking to exceed the 10% target, while efficiency gains from digital migration are lowering the group’s cost-to-income ratio despite headline operating expense growth being driven by intentional investments in scalable platforms.
  • Credicorp’s capital position and risk management framework are providing a concealed buffer that allows for aggressive reinvestment in growth without compromising solvency, a factor the market overlooks amid macroeconomic uncertainty. The bank reported a record ROE of 21.1% in Q1 FY26, exceeding its own guidance range, while maintaining a CET1 ratio comfortably above regulatory minimums and a low-cost deposit base of 63.9%—a structural advantage that reduces funding volatility and enhances net interest margin resilience. Management explicitly stated that strong solvency enabled the increase in the ordinary dividend to PEN 50 per share, yet simultaneously emphasized that capital levels are moving closer to targets, implying room for further accretive capital deployment. The cost of risk fell to 1.3% group-wide, with BCP at a cyclical low of 0.8%, driven not by deteriorating underwriting but by transient tailwinds: profit-sharing payments from the mining boom, pension fund withdrawals boosting repayment capacity, and wholesale portfolio reversals. While management cautioned that these are temporary and cost of risk will normalize, they also confirmed that risk-adjusted NIM reached a record high of 5.5% in BCP and 5.81% group-wide, proving that the core earning power of the balance sheet is strengthening independent of credit cycle benefits. This improvement in risk-adjusted profitability—coupled with declining NPL volumes (down 11.1% at BCP) and provisions (down 35.1%)—indicates that asset quality improvements are rooted in structural changes: tighter origination standards, enhanced analytics, and better collections management, not just cyclical luck. The market is fixated on the potential downside from El Niño and election uncertainty, but Credicorp’s balance sheet is increasingly liquid, less volatile, and more profitable on a risk-adjusted basis than at any point in the last decade. The bank’s ability to grow loans at 8.2% in the quarter—with retail and microfinance accelerating—while simultaneously improving credit metrics and expanding high-yield digital lending via Yape, reveals a rare combination of growth and quality. Furthermore, the Senate’s veto power, cited as a stabilizing institutional factor, reduces the likelihood of disruptive policy shifts, meaning that even if a more interventionist president is elected, macroeconomic continuity is likely preserved. This political resilience, combined withCredicorp’s intrinsic capital strength, creates a scenario where the bank can continue to reinvest excess capital into high-return digital initiatives and retail loan expansion without triggering regulatory concerns—a dual advantage of growth and safety that is not priced into the stock.
▼ Bear case
  • Credicorp’s apparent strength in loan growth and asset quality may be misleadingly inflated by transient, non-recurring factors that are unlikely to persist, creating a significant risk of mean reversion in profitability metrics. The reported 8.2% loan growth in Q1 FY26 was driven strongly by BCP and Mibanco, yet management explicitly attributed half of the deposit growth—and by extension, a portion of the funding base supporting lending—to pension fund withdrawals, which are expected to fade during the year as the withdrawn capital is spent or redeployed. This temporary liquidity influx artificially lowered funding costs and boosted NIM to 6.6%, but as these inflows reverse, the bank may face renewed pressure on margins unless core transactional deposit growth accelerates sufficiently to offset the loss—a scenario not guaranteed given lingering economic uncertainty. More critically, the decline in the cost of risk to 1.3% (with BCP at 0.8%) was significantly influenced by three non-structural, one-time events: profit-sharing payments from the mining sector improving middle-segment repayment capacity, liberated funds from pension withdrawals enhancing individual repayment ability, and reversals in corporate provisions due to a single client regularizing refinanced exposure. These factors, explicitly cited by the Chief Risk Officer, are not sustainable drivers of credit improvement and could reverse rapidly if mining profitability normalizes or if El Niño-induced agricultural disruptions spill over into broader economic stress. The NPL ratio’s decline to 4.3% reflects these temporary boosts rather than fundamental underwriting strength, and as the cost of risk begins to normalize toward the guidance range—as management anticipates—profitability could face downward pressure even if loan growth holds. Furthermore, the bank’s reliance on digital innovation for future growth, while promising, carries execution risk: Yape’s lending revenue, though up 3.6x year-over-year, still represents a small fraction of total loans, and its credit penetration at 30% of MAUs suggests that deeper monetization will require underwriting riskier segments, potentially deteriorating asset quality over time. The innovation portfolio’s expenses rose 40% and now represent 84% of disruptive investments, yet its contribution to risk-adjusted revenues remains only 9%, indicating a lag in returns on heavy spending. If user growth plateaus or monetization fails to scale as expected—as seen in Bolivia’s different trajectory despite interoperability advantages—the group could be left with elevated fixed costs from digital investments without commensurate revenue offsets, pressuring the efficiency ratio. Management’s own admission that they are reevaluating medium-term targets for disruptive initiatives and group ROE post-election underscores the uncertainty around the scalability and profitability of these bets, suggesting that current optimism may be premised on unproven assumptions about network effects and cross-sell efficacy in new markets.

Peer Comparison

Companies in the Banks - Regional
S.No. Ticker Company Market CapP/EP/STotal Debt (Qtr)
1 KB KB Financial Group Inc. 42,090.38 Bn0.00 Bn0.01 Mn56.66 Bn
2 SHG Shinhan Financial Group Co Ltd 33,919.15 Bn0.00 Bn0.00 Mn40.46 Bn
3 BCH Bank Of Chile 4,123.52 Bn368.17 Bn1.57 Mn0.00 Bn
4 LYG Lloyds Banking Group plc 360.83 Bn0.00 Bn0.00 Mn42.37 Bn
5 FCAP First Capital Inc 204.17 Bn0.00 Bn0.03 Mn-
6 LARK Landmark Bancorp Inc 187.97 Bn0.00 Bn0.00 Mn0.00 Bn
7 NWG NatWest Group plc 144.82 Bn0.00 Bn0.00 Mn94.66 Bn
8 PNC Pnc Financial Services Group, Inc. 101.80 Bn0.00 Bn0.00 Mn21.42 Bn