La Hipotecaria

John Rauschkolb is Founder and CEO of Banco La Hipotecaria, a Panamanian-based mortgage bank with subsidiary operations in El Salvador and Colombia.

John holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University, an MA in International Management from the Lauder Institute at The University of Pennsylvania and MBA in Finance from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania, MBA.

John has thirty-eight years of mortgage-banking experience having begun his mortgage banking career in California in 1983 where he worked in the industry until 1992 before beginning his graduate studies in finance and international management. After finishing his graduate studies he became Director of Mortgage operations for Invermexico, Banco Mexicano where lived through the peso devaluation of 1994 and its aftermath.

In 1997, John founded the company that is today Banco La Hipotecaria, a regional mortgage lender based in the Republic of Panama, that specializes in the in the origination, servicing and securitization of residential first-mortgage loans to homeowners in the middle and lower-middle income brackets.  Today, La Hipotecaria services a residential portfolio of over 30,000 mortgages totaling nearly US$1 billion with an average loan size of $35,000. The company employs 250 persons in 11 offices in Panama, El Salvador and Colombia.  The La Hipotecaria has successfully completed sixteen MBS transactions, including the pioneering issuance of seven regional cross-border investment-grade rated securitization of the bank´s residential mortgage portfolio placed into U.S. markets.

John has served as a Director of the Panamanian Securities Exchange (Bolsa de Valroes de Panamá) and the Central American Clearing Agency (Central Latinoamericano de Valroes, S. A.) and the Panamanian Banking Association.  He is also an active member of the Panama Chapter of YPO.  John lives in Panama City, Panama with his wife Mayra and they have three sons, Eric, Mark and Paul.