The origins of Grupo Elektra date back to 1950, when entrepreneur Hugo Salinas Price launched a small appliance store in Monterrey, Nuevo León.
[8] Although the company initially specialized in radio equipment, over time it added other products to its catalog, such as furniture, televisions, and home accessories, enabling it to establish new locations across the country.
Six years later, the company acquired a 94.3 % share in the Salinas y Rocha store chain, and in 2002, founded Banco Azteca, a financial institution aimed at serving segments of the population underserved by traditional banks.
[9][10] In early 2012, the group announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire the non-bank lender Advance America (now known as Purpose Financial) to expand its operations in the United States.
[15] As part of the delisting process, Grupo Elektra appointed a new Board of Directors, with Pedro Padilla Longoria as Chairman and Gabriel Alfonso Roqueñí Rello as CEO.
[20] According to Forbes magazine, Italika “is marketed in 1,000 Elektra stores and 2,500 third-party points of sale”[21].Salinas y Rocha is a retail chain founded in 1906 by Benjamín Salas Westrup and acquired by the Group in 1999 through an auction.
[26] On the deposit side, the bank offers a variety of savings products for its target market, with interest-bearing accounts that can be opened with one peso and do not generate commissions.
[7] After obtaining authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission of Mexico (CNBV by its Spanish acronym) in 2011, the company began operations in 2012, initially providing institutional promotion services.
In 2013, it expanded into investment banking services, and by 2015, it had formed a strategic alliance with South Korean conglomerate Samsung to launch its mobile app, called Punto Trader.
[31] According to company reported data, Elektra has invested 113 million Mexican pesos in environmental management, with 35% of the energy used in its operations coming from renewable sources.