The chart below shows the 5-year performance comparison of top three Chilean banks and the four largest banks in the U.S:

Click to enlarge

Banco Santander Chile (SAN) and Banco de Chile(BCH) are the first and second largest Chilean banks based on assets. And CorpBanca(BCA) is one of the top 10 banks by assets.

[TABLE=887]

In the past 5 years, the S&P 500 has been flat at 0.83%. Among the four largest U.S. banks only JPMorgan Chase(JPM) has been a decent performer.This week the Federal Reserve rejected Bank of America’s proposal to increase its dividend payments.. JPMorgan Chase has announced plans to buy back stock worth $15 billion and raise its dividend in the second quarter to 25 cents a share up from 5 cents now. Wells Fargo(WFC) has increased the quarterly dividend rate to $0.12 a share and announced the repurchase of its common stock by an additional 200 million shares. Citigroup (C) plans to reinstate a one-cent dividend and implement a reverse stock split in the ratio of 1 for 10 after the market close on May 6. Citi’s total outstanding shares stands at a massive 29 billion and in the last 50 days an average of 509 million shares were traded on the NYSE. As a result of the reverse split, the daily trading volume on the NYSE is projected to fall by an incredible 11% according to a Reuters report.

Disclosure: Long BCH