The Fintech industry The daughter of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has gone hand in hand with technology as a result of digitization, and it does so because everyone has a cell phone in their hand and is connected.
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Technology means democratizing services for those who don’t have it in general, and the financial industry is no exception. In the past, in almost all emerging markets, the banking model has only worked for the minority population as it has adapted to the proposed model.
However, this model is based on old technology and is based on a very high cost structure due to the fact that actual spaces must be available, such as offices, branches, among others, this model provides services based on monetization by charging. To users such as: handling fees, charges for sending and receiving money, other costs that make it difficult for many people to easily access these financial services.
As a result of this problem, Fintech movement occurs And with this movement in Colombia and many other countries, technology-based companies provide financial services with better usability and a different business model where the user is no longer charged and where the main protagonist technology and neobanks are increasingly gaining ground.
What is being sought now is to provide better usability and free services, to achieve significant growth, something that is happening around the world, and Latin America is no exception, as numerous innovative companies are emerging that are democratizing services. Financial
Square made its first investment in Latin America
Recently, Movie A Colombian digital wallet and fintech has achieved significant milestones in becoming fully specialized in online banking, financial and mobile payment services. The first Latin fintech where Square, a company founded by Jack Dorsey, made a significant investment of 17 million. This is Square’s first investment in Latin America.
“Square invests in Colombia and this is their first investment in Latin America. We are very proud of them and we feel very connected to what they have achieved in the United States and what they want to achieve in the world.” We use technology to allow people and businesses to digitally pay or be paid, and we do the same with Colombian movies. “ Hernando Rubio, CEO and co-founder of MovieI, said in an interview Entrepreneur .
According to Rubio, the movie was born because of the low penetration of digital payments in Colombia, like other emerging countries. According to Dan, only 56.5% of households in Colombia have access to the Internet and the percentage of people who have access to online payments is very low, with about 14% having credit cards. .
Because of this, the movie was born to use technology so that people could pay and pay digitally. Since its inception in 2019, FinTech has managed to bring together 2.2 million people who already have users and more than 60,000 businesses that digitally receive and pay with Movii, and with more than 4 million users, 2022 is expected to end.
“It’s about understanding what users need, how they want to behave, and how technology will be able to offer that service. We dedicate a lot of our resources to understanding the segments that we lend and to understand the needs and difficulties of the users and to be able to build experience from them so that they can transfer their money and work better in the digital economy. “ Rubio says.
Service
With three years of service, Fintech has been able to bring 15 products that make them useful to people, such as opening an account in a matter of minutes in a simple and 100% digital way, so that they can buy anywhere with a card. World. With easy-to-use and low-cost applications, you can send and receive remittances to more than 100 countries, and you can easily buy or sell crypto assets from applications, even among many other services.
According to Hernando, his company is different because they create an innovative way Provide financial services focused on what the customer wants And they make quick and useful products for users and do it with great agility based on a different business model. Unlike the traditional one that charges users for everything, but instead charges a third party so that users have good usability and stay free.
Investment
Movii has already conducted a number of investment rounds, such as Series A and Series B, where critical funds have entered which companies want the same thing they want, including seeking financial inclusion through technology and being able to democratize payments.
In Round C, they conducted a preliminary survey where Square actually entered, which was allowed in the United States. Small businesses get digital payments Since they only receive cash payments, as is the case in many countries in Colombia and the Latin region.
Reasons to invest squares in MOVII
According to Rubio, the main reason for investing in Square’s Fintech is that they see widespread suffering around the world, especially in emerging markets, over how the vast majority of people do not use the current payment method. And how they were excluded.
That’s why Square wants to do what they’ve done in the United States, in Latin America, and look for companies that do the same thing. Square has done the same and invested in other regions, such as Europe and Asia. Now they have decided to do it in Latin America and the main reason they do it with the movie is because they are connected to their goal, which is To help promote new technologies that allow countries to overcome barriers So that anyone can transfer their money to the world in a simple, easy and fast way.
Challenges and difficulties
There is no better time than this “Anyone who understands the pain that affects millions of people and anyone who understands how technology can solve it will have a huge index increase.”
Being a regulated financial industry; According to Hernando, the biggest challenge is how to innovate in a regulated industry, because they want to go fast, but in the end you have to go at the pace of regulators.
The other side is access to infrastructure, usually banks own infrastructure networks in all countries and Colombia is no exception and there are conflicts of interest because if banks own infrastructure they are not going to want to enable that infrastructure so that new competitors can come.
Barriers are regulatory, compliance and barriers to access to infrastructure and then other such capital access, but it is something that is less and less. Because there is more money available and more investment funds available And venture capitalists, willing to allocate funds for technology-based companies to solve problems that have not been solved historically.
Expansion
According to Hernando, the company plans to continue growing so that all businesses can pay digitally and continue to launch new products to make them more useful. The final round of investment will be used to grow and create new products, as well as reach new countries that are still studying their markets so that they can later be entrepreneurial and reach those places with a lot of financial and digital. Service solution. .
(About the author: Julian Tabares, editor of the Soya Emprender site)
