Banco Agromercantil (BAM) Guatemala 2026: Accounts, Foreigner Rules and Official Channels

If you are in the United States and someone told you BAM is an easy bank to open from abroad “with a passport”, this page is going to save you a trip. Everything below comes from what BAM itself publishes, read on 31 August 2026, and where the bank publishes nothing we say so instead of filling the gap. That includes the two things a diaspora reader most wants and cannot get here: a remote-opening product and a SWIFT code.

Comparing banks first? See personal account opening by bank and the Banrural guide, which covers the one large Guatemalan bank that does publish an app-only account for people living in the USA.

The foreigner rule, stated plainly

Three sentences that decide whether BAM is even an option for you:

1. Cuenta Fácil — the free, fully digital account — requires being Guatemalan, over 18, with a valid DPI. There is no foreigner tier of it.
2. Ahorro Pro and Depósitos Monetarios accept a passport only for foreigners who are legally resident in Guatemala — BAM’s requirement lists say exactly that, so the passport is the ID of someone who already holds residency, not an alternative to holding it.
3. Both branch products also require a water, electricity or phone bill for the residence where you currently live — that is BAM’s exact wording. It does not say whether a foreign bill qualifies; if you live abroad, that is the question to settle with the branch before traveling.

So: tourist or residency-in-progress = not eligible today. US citizens with Guatemalan legal residency = eligible through a branch. Guatemalan citizens with a valid DPI, including dual citizens, satisfy the Cuenta Fácil nationality rule; for the branch products the utility-bill question above still applies if they live abroad.

If that rules BAM out, the workable alternatives per bank are in best banks for foreigners in Guatemala.

Who BAM is — and which numbers are the bank’s, not the group’s

The institution’s origins go back to 30 June 1926, with the creation of the Banco Central de Guatemala, which absorbed the functions of the Caja Reguladora. In 1944 the entity took the name Banco Agrícola Mercantil. In the mid-1950s a group of farmers, with government backing, drove the creation of Banco del Agro, and in 2000 the two merged to form Banco Agromercantil de Guatemala, S.A. BAM marked 100 years of history in 2026 with a free-entry exhibition at the Museo Ixchel.

A precision note, since two dates circulate: BAM’s own interactive timeline on /acerca-de-nosotros/ shows a tab labelled 1948 where its dated press release says 1944. The tab bodies load via JavaScript and cannot be read without a browser, so this page cites only the 1944 that BAM publishes in readable prose. And on framing: “founded 1926” is fair for the origins, but the name Banco Agromercantil only exists from 2000 — it is not a 100-year-old brand.

Ownership. BAM is part of Grupo Cibest, which BAM’s own ratings release names as its shareholder; BAM’s centennial press page separately describes the group as one of Latin America’s most important financial groups, listed on the New York Stock Exchange for over 30 years. The exact ownership percentage is not published by BAM or in Grupo Cibest’s shareholder-structure pages, so no figure appears here. If you see “Grupo Bancolombia” in BAM material, that is BAM’s own older FAQ copy — every 2026-dated release says Grupo Cibest. Locally, BAM sits inside Grupo Financiero Agromercantil (GFA) alongside Seguros Agromercantil, Arrendadora Agromercantil, Financiera Agromercantil, Agrovalores and Tarjeta Agromercantil.

Two caveats that most write-ups drop, and that change how the table reads:

1. AAA.gt is a national-scale rating. It means “highest within Guatemala”, not comparable to an international AAA. Do not read it next to Fitch’s BB+ as though they were the same ruler — for a US reader used to global scales, BB+ is the internationally comparable number.
2. The four rows marked Group are Grupo Financiero Agromercantil, not the bank standalone. Presenting Q48,204 million as “the bank’s assets” is a denominator error, and it is a common one in recycled press coverage.

Sources: risk-ratings release (updated 17/04/2026) and GFA results to March 2026 (updated 30/04/2026). Leadership: Federico Bolaños Coloma, general manager and CEO, and Alejandro Aguilar Vargas, VP of finance. Head office: 7a. Avenida 7-30, Zona 9, Guatemala City.

The accounts, with the real opening amounts

Cuenta Fácil — free, digital, and not for you unless you are Guatemalan

Worth understanding anyway, because it is what your family in Guatemala can open in an afternoon. Opening amount Q0.00, no minimum deposit, applied for with a 100% digital form, a selfie with your DPI and an internet connection. Eligibility beyond nationality: not a politically exposed person, state contractor or state supplier, and monthly income under Q200,000.00.

Published limits and costs: quetzal deposits only, maximum balance Q100,000.00, one Cuenta Fácil per client, no chequebook or passbook, no additional debit cards. Q0 account maintenance, Q0 debit-card membership, Q0 on ACH and Immediate ACH transfers, first two transactions free then Q5 per additional transaction at 5B network ATMs, Q7.00 for withdrawals at ATMs outside the 5B network, and Q0 for emailed statements (a physical monthly statement costs Q10.00). It runs from Bamvirtual Personas and through Mi Bamco banking agents.

Ahorro Pro and Depósitos Monetarios — the resident-foreigner route

Both publish the same identity rule: DPI, or a passport for foreigners legally resident in Guatemala, plus a water, electricity or phone bill for the residence where you currently live.

Depósitos Monetarios is the heaviest of the three on paperwork. On top of the above it asks for 2 beneficiaries, 2 personal references with phone numbers, and completion of the IVE-IR-01 form-contract and annexes — that form name comes straight from BAM’s requirements list. Bring the references’ phone numbers written down; the requirement is for references with phone numbers, not just names.

Currency note for diaspora readers: BAM has no product called “Cuenta Dólares”. Dollars are a currency option on Ahorro Pro (opens US$50.00) and Depósitos Monetarios (opens US$500). If a comparison site offers you a “BAM Dollar Account”, it is using a name the bank does not publish. Side-by-side requirements are in USD account requirements by bank and the product comparison in USD accounts in Guatemala.

Monetaria Remesas Bam — the receiving side of your transfer

This is the account for the person in Guatemala who receives what you send. Quetzales only, no opening amount, fixed 0.00% interest, no passbook, Q0 maintenance, Q0 debit-card membership, and the same first two 5B ATM transactions free then Q5 structure. Its point is that the remittance can be sent directly as a deposit to the account, with immediate availability of the money through the debit card on the 5B ATM network — no queue at a payout window, no cash pickup.

That is the practical diaspora play with BAM: you may not be able to open an account, but your recipient may be able to open one that removes the pickup step — BAM’s product page publishes no requirements for Monetaria Remesas Bam, so have them confirm at a branch before either of you counts on it. BAM also publishes remittance-adjacent product pages — a Cuenta Fácil Remesa, a remittance advance, and migrant insurance — alongside its remesas familiares page.

Apps and online banking — the exact names

Getting these right is a security control, not trivia. A wrong name is what makes a fake app look plausible.

• Mobile app: Bamapp Personas (business version: Bamapp Empresas).
• Online banking: Bamvirtual (Bamvirtual Personas / Bamvirtual Empresas). That is the only correct name — the variant BAM en línea does not exist anywhere on the bank’s site, so a message using it is a red flag.
• Distribution: Google Play, App Store and Huawei App Gallery.
• Cuik is BAM’s feature for transferring to third parties at BAM and other banks using only the recipient’s mobile number.

The real store ratings, with their date. Read 31 August 2026:

The two stores disagree sharply, and that disagreement is the honest finding — there is no single “4.0” that represents this app. If app quality matters to you because you will be operating the account from abroad, weigh the iOS number heavily and cross-check mobile banking apps compared.

The anti-phishing payload: on Google Play the publisher must read Banco Agromercantil de Guatemala, and on the App Store the developer must read Banco Agromercantil de Guatemala S.A. “Verify the developer” is empty advice unless someone tells you the exact string to expect.

Exchange rate — use the live table, not a number on this page

BAM publishes its own buy/sell board on its homepage and it moves. This page deliberately fixes no figure: the current Banguat reference is Q7.62 per dollar, and the bank-by-bank comparison, including BAM’s row, is in our live Guatemala exchange rates table.

For sending money from the USA, compare every offer against that Banguat reference rather than against another provider’s advertised rate — the gap between the reference and the rate you are actually given is the margin you are paying, and it is the part that does not appear as a fee.

International transfers, and the missing BIC

BAM lets you order international transfers from Bamvirtual with a real-time send window until 14:30 on business days — after that the instruction rolls to the next business day. Available in dollars, euros, Swiss francs, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, Canadian dollars and others, with automatic Swift confirmation generated when the transfer is entered through Bamvirtual.

🔴 BAM does not publish its SWIFT/BIC code anywhere on its site, and you will not find one asserted here. Directories and guides — including our wire-transfer guide — list a code for BAM, but since the bank itself publishes nothing to check it against, confirm the code inside Bamvirtual or at the branch before instructing a wire. The contrast is instructive: G&T Continental publishes its own code, GTCOGTGC, right on its homepage. If the goal is a US-side dollar account, see USD accounts from the USA.

Fees — what is published and what is not

BAM consolidates its charges in a document titled Tarifario de servicios varios - Quetzales, in force from 31 July 2024, plus a separate credit-card tarifario dated January 2024.

This page does not reproduce individual figures from that PDF, for a stated reason: it is a multi-column table whose text extraction returns labels and amounts unpaired, so matching any one item to its price would be guesswork. The only fees asserted here are the ones BAM publishes on each product page, quoted above (Q0 maintenance, Q5 and Q7.00 at ATMs, Q10.00 for a printed statement). Before opening, download the current tarifario and read it on screen.

Official contact, and how to verify a message is really BAM

⚠ Two numbers that look almost identical. The phone line ends in 5 (2338-656 5) and the WhatsApp ends in 4 (2338-656 4). Both are published by BAM and both are correct; the resemblance is the hazard, not a bank error. Save them separately, with different labels.

🔴 BAM publishes no 24/7 line — plan around it from abroad

Worth stating bluntly because most Guatemalan web coverage claims otherwise: the only attention hours BAM publishes are Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00 — with no timezone stated; Guatemala local time is the working assumption. There is no separate anti-fraud number and no advertised 24-hour coverage. For a reader abroad that is a narrower window than it looks once you convert it to your own time zone, so work the conversion out now and save it with the number. If your card is compromised on a Saturday, the published channel is still the same PBX with option 1 — which is a reason to keep card limits low and transaction alerts on, rather than to rely on a hotline that is not advertised.

The promise BAM does make — and its exact scope

BAM publishes a specific statement on its cyberfraud page:

“Te damos la seguridad de que Bam nunca enviará enlaces por correo electrónico o whatsapp para ingresar a tu Bamvirtual o BamApp.”

In English: BAM assures you it will never send links by email or WhatsApp to get into your Bamvirtual or BamApp. Read the scope exactly. It is a promise about access links, over email or WhatsApp — and it is strong precisely because it is narrow: any message carrying a login link is disqualified by the bank’s own words. What it is not is a general pledge never to ask for your password; BAM does not publish one of those. That broader advice is ours, not the bank’s, and the difference matters — a bank’s promise lets you treat a request as proof of fraud, while general advice proves nothing about an incoming message.

What BAM does publish as guidance: verify the source before sharing information, distrust urgency, share no personal data by email, phone call or social media, and report anything suspicious through official channels.

If it already happened — BAM’s published sequence

1. Change your passwords immediately.
2. Notify BAM that you may have been attacked, at correo.sospechoso@bam.com.gt.
3. Contact the authorities and detail what happened. Guatemala’s Public Ministry takes online complaints at Yo Denuncio; the MP switchboard is 2411-9191.

One step BAM does not number but that dominates the others: block first. Call 2338-6565 and take option 1 before you start changing passwords — money moves while you type. If you are abroad, dial +502 2338 6565.

BAM’s rebrand is itself a phishing vector — and BAM says so

BAM changed its visual identity and got enough alarmed messages that it published an FAQ headed “¿Esto es Phishing o fraude?”, answering no — it is an evolution involving design changes across platforms, branches and digital assets, communicated through its own channels: the app, its websites, call centres, emails to customers and a mass campaign.

Here is the other half, which the bank does not say and we will: a rebrand is exactly the cover a real phisher exploits. Update your details for our new platform is the oldest script there is, and during a rebranding window it sounds plausible. Both things are true at once — BAM’s redesign is genuine, and the verification rule does not relax because of it. Reach Bamvirtual or BamApp yourself, by typing the address or opening the app, never through a link you received.

What BAM does not publish

A list that is itself information. All of this was searched on BAM’s site on 31 August 2026 and is not published:

• SWIFT/BIC code. Ask inside Bamvirtual or at a branch.
• Branch, ATM or kiosk counts. The locator is a dynamic map with no totals. What is confirmed: the ATM network is 5B, and BAM operates Mi Bamco banking agents.
• Grupo Cibest’s ownership percentage of BAM.
• A numeric ranking in the banking system — the supportable claim is Fitch’s, as quoted by the bank: among the five largest.
• Cuenta Fácil interest rates and itemised fees outside the tarifario PDF.

If another page gives you these with confidence, ask it for the source before believing it.

Keep reading

• Personal account opening by bank in Guatemala — the six big banks side by side.
• How to open a Banrural account — a large bank with a published app-only diaspora account.
• Best banks for foreigners in Guatemala — who accepts what immigration status.
• USD account requirements by bank — dollar accounts, documents required.
• International wire transfers to Guatemala — routing, costs and alternatives.
• Guatemala exchange rates — live bank-by-bank table, BAM row included.
• All Guatemala banking guides — the full section index.

Primary sources (bam.com.gt), read 31 August 2026: homepage · About us · Contact · Cuenta Fácil · Ahorro Pro · Depósitos Monetarios con intereses · Monetaria Remesas Bam · International transfers · Cyberfraud page · Security guidance · FAQ · Corporate information · Newsroom.

Last verified: 31 August 2026. Opening amounts, rates and fees change without notice — confirm on the product page or at +502 2338 6565 before opening. This page fixes no exchange rate: use the live table.