Sebastián Sichel steps down from BancoEstado helm

PRESS RELEASE from BancoEstado

December 18, 2020

(Machine translation)

During a press conference, Sebastián Sichel announced today his decision to resign from the position of president of BancoEstado, in which he had been working since June 5.

In this regard, he thanked all the workers for their commitment, highlighting that “every minute and every hour that I have been the president of BancoEstado, I have dedicated 24 hours to helping the bank's management, to supporting the management of the workers and, particularly , to worry about those who are on the other side of the counter and who need the bank every day in places that we never imagined ”.

Regarding his work at BancoEstado, he added: “I had the experience of being in Teno, Parral, Combarbalá, helping bank officials and realizing that this bank is needed more than ever and that the pride of presiding over it is worrying that Chileans end up with that sad experience of, many times, standing in line ”.

While at BancoEstado, Sichel promoted several initiatives focused on facing the economic and social effects of the pandemic, in addition to strengthening the bank's social role by supporting the country's economic reactivation.

Among the main milestones of his management, the acceleration of the delivery of Covid-19 Fogape credits stands out , which exceed 50% of the total for the industry with more than 150 thousand delivered; 3 million Fonasa bonds sold through CajaVecina; implementation of the first payment of 10% of pension funds with 10 million payments made; 121 thousand payments of the Covid Christmas bonus; more than 20 million additional social benefit payments compared to 2019; and 31 thousand CajaVecina service points were reached.

Additionally, it promoted other initiatives such as the launch of BancoEstado Express, with 25 additional services, and the opening of 6 new branches of this subsidiary; the reformulation of the Entrepreneur Award focused on female entrepreneurship with more than 23,000 applications for the new CreceMujer Award; and the strengthening of financing measures for MSMEs with initiatives such as the Thousand Mentories program and the opening of Creceaquí spaces.

Sichel is a lawyer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and a master's degree in Public Law, with a mention in Constitutional Law, from the same university.

Before assuming the presidency of BancoEstado, he served as Minister of Social Development, a position he assumed in June 2019. Previously, between May 2018 and June 2019, he was Executive Vice President of Corfo.