Banca de Desarrollo Medal. 45th Anniversary (1988)

This medal commemorates a 45th anniversary of development banking, that is, of the public financial institutions created by the Mexican State to channel credit toward strategic sectors such as industry, agriculture, housing, and foreign trade.

Development banking had its great impulse from the 1930s and 1940s onward, with bodies such as Nacional Financiera, and was a key instrument of the import-substitution development model.

Struck in brass and of large module, it is a commercial medal of institutional mintage, of the kind these bodies commissioned to celebrate their anniversaries and publicize their role in the country's economic development.

What it shows

The reverse, the commemorative face, bears at its center the figures 1943 / 1988 surrounded by the engraved legend CUARENTA Y CINCO AÑOS DE BANCA DE DESARROLLO. The obverse shows a stylized institutional logo within a rounded-corner square, with the word BANPECO at the bottom. It is a classic Mexican banking table piece: clean relief, broad fields, and block-number typography.

Context

The medal celebrates forty-five years of development banking in Mexico, counted from 1943 to 1988, and was issued by BANPECO. Development banking groups the public institutions that finance the country's strategic sectors, and these commemorative medals were struck for institutional anniversaries, not as circulating money.

Value and collecting

It is not legal tender, so its value is numismatic and depends on condition and the metal. The record lists it in brass, at 67.28 g and 50 mm in diameter. Handling marks, rubs in the field, and the sharpness of the relief rule over the price. If you want to price or sell it, compare with the stores in the directory; to identify variants or settle authenticity questions, the forum is a good starting point.