Although it is still close to calling the shots in the development of the Fintech (Financial Technology) industry, perhaps below large companies such as Brazil in South America, in recent years Colombia has taken great steps in the evolution and implementation of these financial services through the digital world, to the point of that today more and more companies see this as a necessity and not so much as a luxury.
According to the Colombia Tech Report, presented this year by the firm KPMG, there are currently 1,327 startups in the country, in 31 sectors, of which 15.3% belong to the Fintech sector (203); This being the most implemented, even above key sectors such as retail and health.
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Likewise, when looking at the 10 largest startups in Colombia, “it is interesting to find in a brief sectoral analysis that the top-10 is made up of 40% Fintech startups and 20% PropTech startups, which indicates the importance of these sectors in the Colombian ecosystem. The rest of the sectors represented in the top-10 are EdTech, FoodTech and HealthTec,” according to the report.
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With everything mentioned above, there is more than It is clear that the fintech sector is one of the priorities of the market and technological development today, however, in conversation with Portafolio, José Vicente Gedeón and Felipe Gedeón (CEO and CMO of Cobre), indicated that it is not the time to celebrate, since there is still a long way to go if we want to be on par with the great powers.
One of the main characteristics of fintech is its speed, agility and simplicity.
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For José Vicente Gedeón, the first thing that should be highlighted are the efforts of the Bank of the Republic to modernize the management of the country’s finances and make way for the technology that supports this sector, through initiatives such as the digitalization of banking or the study of the implementation of an official digital currency for the Nation.
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“Today, the Bank of the Republic, through the immediate payment system initiative, which is being led by Ana María Prieto, is in a stage of modernizing the payment infrastructure in Colombia. But this is only the beginning, the beginning of an infrastructure that is being created where ecosystem actors, such as Fintech, as we are payment service providers,” he indicated.
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For this businessman, the country has a long way to go, especially in the development of new applications that facilitate access to financial services, but that are also part of an integrated ecosystem that requires the participation and support of all the actors in this sector. sector.
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“We are going to have to create a number of products and tools so that companies, in our case, can take advantage of this infrastructure. Cobre’s mission is to solve the most complex problems in the movement of money for companies and we are completely focused on creating products on this infrastructure so that companies can move money in a much more efficient, much faster, much safer way,” said the CEO of Cobre.
Investments.
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Giving an example of the delays or pending challenges that the country has, José Vicente Gedeón added that “the majority of companies that make payments in the country have a treasury team, an accountant or a person in charge of payments who works with tools inefficient, whether creating files, separating them, or uploading payment files to a bank. These are hours that we count at more than 50 on average per month,” which for him translates into lost productivity.
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Felipe Gedeón made a similar approach in this talk with Portafolio, using as a reference the pyramid of times used versus impact, with which he maintains that today the majority of schedules are allocated to routine processes that do not contribute to the growth of companies.
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“At the base of that pyramid are the things that generate the least impact, but consume the most hours, and at the top are the things that generate the most impact, but we dedicate fewer hours to them precisely because we are all busy doing those activities at the base of the pyramid that are required for the company to survive. What fintechs that create business solutions aim to do is to turn that pyramid upside down from different angles, so that we have to dedicate many fewer hours to low-value activities and have many more hours left for what is really important,” he said.
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According to the Colombia Tech Report, between 2013 and 2023, Colombian startups raised a total of USD 4,621 million. The year 2021 was, globally, a record year for startups. Colombian startups raised more than USD 1.5 billion in a total of 89 deals (2021 was also the record year for the number of deals).
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With this in mind, Felipe Gedeón highlights that there are very clear examples to follow, even in the same region, where the support of the central bank and the joint work of the banking sector in that country, allowed the development of an important initiative that is currently a reference for the entire world and only competes with the major developments in India.
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“In India what UPI has achieved and in Brazil what PIX has achieved, Although I think that of Brazil is particularly striking for us Colombians because it is much closer in kilometers and in time, because it really began to happen in 2020 and we have been able to see very astonishing results in a very short term, including a decrease in transactions. in cash from 72% to just over 20%,” he said.
Given the global shutdown due to Covid-19, it was possible to continue providing credit solutions and grow 3% compared to 2019.
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To this he added that it should also be highlighted “the adoption for business payments of almost 83% and a decrease in transactional fraud rates of 90%.” The results are very close to us in geography and time and I think that makes it the success story that we study most eagerly.”
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For both Felipe and José Vicente Gedeón, the country is moving on the right path as far as Fintech development is concerned, although they make it clear that if they want to be a reference, it is necessary to work as a team, push the concept of the ‘EITHERpen Banking’ or open banking, overcoming the differences that may exist between one sector and another.
