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Itaú Unibanco Holding SA topped fellow Brazil-based Banco do Brasil SA to become Latin America's largest bank by assets at year-end 2016, with total assets of $438.00 billion compared to Banco do Brasil's $430.54 billion.
The shift came as Itaú benefited from the merger of its Banco Itaú Chile unit with CorpBanca at the start of the second quarter of 2016, which helped bolster its total loan portfolio. Additionally, both banks' rankings were buoyed by a strong recovery in the Brazilian real, with the Brazilian real gaining 21.7% against the U.S. dollar in 2016.
Indeed, in local currency Itaú and Banco do Brasil's...