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Marcel Jacobo Laniado de Wind (June 4, 1927 - August 8, 1998) was an agricultural engineer and banker who held a number of important public and private positions in Ecuador. He was a humanist, and a public figure in Ecuador for his efforts to improve the country.

He founded both the "Banco de Machala, which helped develop the trade of bananas in the El Oro Province of Ecuador, and later in 1971 founded "Banco del Pacifico." He was known for creating credit approval policies friendly to all economic groups, including loans for small farmers and small businesses; microcredit for artisans and low income people. He was influential in bringing internet to much of Ecuador in the early 1990s. From 1984 to 1986, he served as Ecuador's Minister of Agriculture under Leon Febres Cordero, as well as a number of other positions.

Early life, education
Marcel Jacobo Laniado de Wind was born on June 4, 1927 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. His father, Maurice Jacob Laniado Hassig, was born in French Algeria, and had both Jewish roots and roots in Haifa in Palestine (of the Ottoman Empire). Laniado Hassig emigrated to Ecuador via Manaus, Brazil, and began living in a Jewish community in Quito. There Laniado Hassig met and married Fredika Wind Davila, a Dutch-Jewish woman who was born in Quito. Fredika Wind Davila's father was Maurice de Wind, a Dutch Jew, and her mother was Mercedes Davila Peñaherera of Quito.

Laniado Hassig started his career as a dealer and mechanic. He and his wife later moved to Ancon, a small city in the Guayas Province, where the British oil company company Anglo Ecuadorian Oilfields Limited established its camp for all its personnel. According to Marcel Laniado de Wind, his father moved to the camp for protection against the epidemics sweeping Ecuador, as at the time Ancon was an island of development and health. There Laniado Hassig established the only hotel managed by a non-native, and also opened a small general store. Laniado Hassig soon pursued trading in the South border town Santa Rosa, El Oro Province, despite the wishes of his wife. He began importing textiles and livestock.

At this time, three of his four children were born. Marcel was born in 1927, Cecilia was born in 1928, Marta was born 1930, and Rodrigo was born 1933. Marcel Laniado de Wind attended elementary school at the camp in Anco, and later boarded at La Salle School in Quito, where he completed secondary studies.

In 1941, at age 14, Marcel Jacobo Laniado de Wind and his family were forced to seek refuge in Zaruma in the Province of El Oro during the Pervuian invasion of Ecuador, the family lost its home and belongings. After the invasion Hassig and family moved momentarily to Guayaquil, and then to Machala in the El Oro Province where they started from scratch. In Machala, his father began making iron components for ice makers and gasoline pumps, and put together an ice maker facotry and a gas station as a distributor for the British company Anglo Ecuadorian Oilfields, and managed to save enough to educate the children, chiefly in culture and Jewish tradition. After the war, his mother Wind Fredika of Laniado had to recreate personal documents and re-obtain a passport. She changed her name to Harriet instead of Fredika and was affectionately called "Rica".
 * Seeking asylum in El Oro

Laniado de Wind's status as a child of immigrants, with a name that few locals could pronounce, framed him as an outsider. He admired the positive qualities of the social and economic elites in Ecuador, but observed vices and defects that created inequality and impeded the country's progress.

He completed undergraduate studies at the Pan American Agricultural School at El Zamorano, Honduras, where he graduated in 1949 with a degree in agronomy. That year he returned to Machala. His father died a few months later, and at 22 years old he became head of the household and the family business. He helped care for his young siblings and helped educate Cecil in the United States and Rodrigo in Chile.

Mayor of Machala
At 30 years old, in 1957, he became president of the Machala Rotary Club, and spear-headed paving the first three streets in the city after raising money from the Municipality and the Development Bank. According to de Wind, "That made the machaleños think I could be a good mayor." He decided to run for office, and his win was considered an upset to the political order of the time, which was dominated by families with tight political and economic control of the region. As mayor of Machala, he depoliticized fiscal and municipal actions, and focused on infrastructure for drinking water, telephone communications, and wastewater management.

Banco de Machala
The Province of El Oro was isolated from the rest of Ecuador for many years after the Peruvian invasion because of fear of a new invasion, which kept private investors away from the region. Public investment was also minimal, particularly the construction of roads. The only alternative to a long land route via the town of Cuenca to Machala is maritime transport via the Gulf of Guayaquil. After the war with Peru, a fear of a new invasion kept investors away from the region. Attention from both the private and public sector was minimal. According to Laniado de Wind, "When I returned from school...I found conditions ripe for agricultural development. But there was no bank to pay services. [While running for Governor], I promised first that I would get a bank to open a branch in Machala. It proved impossible as no banks were interested. So I created one."

He ceased to be Governor in 1962, and after fund-raising five million sucres using local capital, he founded the Banco de Machala later that year. It was the first and to date the only Machalan bank started with local funds. Within a few months the bank had a large modern building in Machala, which was comparable to major bank buildings of the time in cities such as Quito and Guayaquil.

Laniado de Wind's stated goal was to create a trustworthy bank that was not dominated by elite families, and that would encourage private investment to help develop the province. Unlike other Ecuadorian banks of the time, individual shareholders did not control the bank.

He created gender-blind lines of credit for small and medium banana and coffee crop farmers. He also modernized processes of credit approval and the management of depository accounts. At the time, the bank's semi-automatic payment of checks was unique in the country.

He also helped establish cooperative public trade unions in Ecuador such as the General Union of Teachers. This allowed the quality of education in the region to remain stable, even when the government routinely generated financial stoppages. This helped minimize strikes.

Alamos Agricultural Society
Around 1984, Machala Bank acquired Alamos Agricultural Society SA (Hacienda Los Alamos), and de Wind became their General Manager. The Alamos Agricultural Society owned a farm of about 14,000 hectares between the Gulf of Guayaquil and Puerto Inca parish in the Province of Guayas. It became the property of the Standard Fruit Company (later known as Dole), the largest independent producer of bananas in the world.

Laniado spoke fondly of the estate as his favorite project. Under his management, the property began producing an average of 125,000 annual weekly boxes of bananas from a banana plantation of 3,000 trees. A new method of protection for each finger of the banana clusters was developed, allowing minimum shrinkage and high quality. In addition orchards were planted. A ranch of 7,500 Santa Gertrudis cattle for beef, which routinely won awards at livestock fairs for the best specimen of the breed.

He organized the estate to fit the needs of employees, and the farm had a commissary, infirmary, church, cinema, and parks for workers. A team of resident physicians provided the workers and their families with free health care. It installed the first telephone network in Ecuador, linking offices, houses and other buildings of the hacienda. Natural areas such as the Churute Park Reserve were set aside and protected from poaching. The location focused on sanitation and clean water, and had an at the time innovative trash collection system.

Pacific National Bank
In 1971 he began having conflicts with the Bank of Machala's largest shareholder, Stephen Quirola. Quirola was also a partner with the Alamos Agricultural Society, and started aggressively buying stocks and shares in order to control the bank and the estate. Marcel Laniado de Wind resigned the day after Quirola's actions, selling his stake in Hacienda Los Alamos and leaving his post as General Manager of Banco de Guayaquil and Machala.

The day after resigning he started the process of founding a new bank. He presented the project to private investors and friends and convinced 447 investors to contribute 40 million sucres, and also to form the initial list of shareholders. On April 10, 1972, he went public with Pacific National Bank.

The business model was revolutionary for its time. Other banks at the time were owned by elite family groups or institutions, and access to services and credit was typically reserved for social classes or groups the bank owners were familiar with. In contrast, Pacific National Bank proposed to serve all social and economic groups, and their slogan was "In the Pacific National Bank you do not need to be a friend of the manager." The bank also democratized shareholding, as compared to allowing just a few shareholders to control the bank. Returns were not offered directly to a potential shareholder, who were instead motivated by the reward of helping develop the country. This business model remains unique in Ecuador.

Laniado de Wind claimed this system relied on the integrity of the singular banker, who was there to simply manage the resources of others while owning no shares. In this way, no shareholders could unduly influence the management of the bank. "We have a million customers with deposits exceeding six trillion sucres. One [person] manages the resources of the people and those resources cannot be used in personal business. We have no business. I have no shares in anything with anybody, and nobody can say 'I'm your partner.'" This allowed the bank to have a unique level of transparency within the financial system of Ecuador.

In 1972 a military coup ended the last Velasco period, initiating the country's oil era and the development of the state as an entrepreneur with strategic resources. The Pacific National Bank began to provide credit and resources to regions that had previously been neglected, chiefly serving the middle class and the onslaught of private entrepreneurial companies appearing in the 1970s and 1980s. The bank grew extremely quickly, becoming one of the largest banks in the country, and eventually the largest.

Advances
Laniado de Wind gained a reputation as an innovator in developing electronic banking products. In 1975 Pacific National Bank installed the first computer system in Ecuadorian banking, with a network of five line terminals. He also helped introduce the Audiomático Telebán and Intermático, and helped advance the processing of receipts and payments so that transactions could be completed from home or the office 24 hours every day.

In 1977 the bank established the Artisan Credit program, later renamed Credit to the Community. This program was unique in its kind, only also offered by the Ford Foundation. This program provided micro loans to artisans in more deprived peripheral regions of the country. The loans were made without collateral or targeted preferential interest rates, with the warranty and ability to pay determined by references from within the artisan community. The bank managed the loan and provided assistance with accounting if needed, and helped create accessible systems for the time and amount of payment.
 * Credit to the Community

"With its unique philosophy of providing greater access to credit to all sectors of the economy, including artisans and small businesses and becoming a catalyst for development of the country, the Pacific National Bank revolutionized the financial system." The program was the flagship of Marcel Laniado de Wind, as he felt it justified the rationale for the bank. This program came to move from status to about 600 artisans to micro entrepreneurs per semester.

In 1979 it installed the first ATM Bancomático in the country, which was also the first in South America. 1980 Pacific National Bank was the first and only financial institution that offered a loan program for studies in foreign universities.

EcuaNet
In Ecuador, the first institution to provide access to the Internet was Ecuanex, an Internet node established in 1991 by the Agency for Electronic Communication Corporation, or Intercom. This network is part of the global network for Global Communications Institute / Alliance for Progressive Communications (IGC / APC), which provides this service to NGOs and development."

In 1992, Laniado created a subsidiary of Banco del Pacifico called EcuaNet, whose purpose was to provide Internet service to Ecuador via a second node. It was especially intended to be free for educational institutions and non-profit organizations. Already a year before the first Internet node had been formed and developed, Ecuanex offered the service solely to nonprofit institutions in Quito such as Accion Ecologica, ALAI, CAAP, CITY, CONUEP, FLACSO, and the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar.

Subsidiaries
Under his leadership, Banco del Pacifico constituted a number of domestic and foreign subsidiaries.
 * Pacific National Bank N. A (Miami, USA)
 * Pacific National Bank S. A. (Panama)
 * Pacific National Bank (Colombia)
 * Pacific National Bank (London Representative Office)
 * Storekeeper of Agriculture (Almagro)
 * Unicredit (Mastercard of Ecuador)
 * Pacific Leasing
 * Factor of the Pacific
 * Valpacifico
 * Seguros Sucre

The Pacific Financial Group constituted Ecuador's largest. Under the leadership of Marcel Laniado de Wind, The Pacific Group created the Huancavilca Foundation. The formation of neighborhood shops with access to competitively priced food was the central goal of the foundation. It considered stores a basis for community development, by selling quality food for the lowest possible price. The Foundation developed the first Community Development Center in Guasmo, south of Guayaquil.

Huancavilca Foundation also provided banking services to the community served by the school by moving the ominous presence of chulqueros (loan sharks). It included a collection center for recyclable materials, distribution of construction materials, and the develop of pharmacy and mail services and public telephones.

Laniado de Wind remained a supporter of his alma mater, the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Zamorano, Honduras. In 1996 the Bank established the Pacific Foundation, with an endowment from Wilson Popenoe "Doris Stone" to finance the education of Ecuadorians in El Zamorano. When he was minister of agriculture in 1984, he obtained a U.S. Aid fund for the same purpose. He later became member of the Board of Trustees of El Zamorano in Boston, USA.

Minister of Agriculture
From 1984-1986 he was Minister of Agriculture in the administration of Leon Febres Cordero. In the short period that he served as minister, he established significant changes in the sector. Established a weekly official price in USD for a box of bananas. He also determined the actual import cost to produce a box of bananas. He formed the Agricultural Commodity Exchange. He worked on controlling smuggling and encouraging domestic production.

He modernized the transparency of the Institute for Agrarian Reform, and put in place clear policies and rules on the import of the basic family basket of food.

Other positions
In the Guayaquil Welfare Board, he served as director of the lottery. In that position, he pushed for the modernization of lottery printing, and introduced to new lottery types.

He was also the president of CEDEGE. The institution had been plagued by delays in implementation, with projects often postponed and forgotten by successive public administrations. Laniado focused on finishing those projects, and the dam that serves the irrigation system is subsequently named in honor of his management.

Positions
He has held the following positions:
 * Director of the Development Bank, Machala, Ecuador.
 * 1958-1962: Mayor of Machala, El Oro Province, Ecuador
 * 1967: Member of Constitutional Province of El Oro, Ecuador
 * 1984: Minister of Agriculture in
 * 1994: Chairman of the National Modernization Council (Conam)
 * President of CEDEGE on two occasions


 * Educational positions:
 * Fundacyt-Espol (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
 * Board of Trustees of Zamorano (Boston, USA)
 * EDUCATE Foundation (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
 * Foundation for the Development of Agriculture, i.e. FUNDAGRO (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
 * Santa Maria Technical University (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
 * Fundación Ecuador (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
 * Foundation Huancavilca
 * Charity Board of Guayaquil (Guayaquil, Ecuador)

Private positions

 * 1957: President of the Rotary Club Machala, Ecuador. 1957
 * 1962-1971: Case Banco de Machala 1962, where he was General Manager until 1971
 * 1964-1971: He began working with the Alamos Agricultural Society SA 1964, and was their General Manager until 1971.
 * 1966-1969: Executive Director of Anglo Ecuadorian Oilfieds Limited, Quito.
 * Member of the International Board of Burma Oil Company. London, England 1966-1969
 * 1972-1998: Cover Pacific National Bank in 1972, and was Executive Chairman until 1998.
 * 1984: Case International Chamber of Commerce

Awards and honors

 * Decoration of the National Order of Merit Knight Degree, awarded by the Government of Dr. Otto Arosemena Gomez.
 * 1979: the United States selected him to serve on the Board of "15 Notable Americans."
 * 1993: Doctor Honoris Causa of the Polytechnic School of the Coast, ESPOL in recognition of ongoing contributions to the institution and the country.

Death
He died in Houston, Texas on August 8, 1998.