DAVIPLATA, A FINANCIAL SOLUTION IN THE HANDS OF EVERY COLOMBIAN
Allowing all people to access the benefits of the products and services of the financial system is one of the great challenges that modern societies face. Recently, technological development and new ways of relationship between people and banking have put on the table the need to generate innovation processes and a deep understanding of the client to allow financial institutions to offer products that fit the customer needs and easen their daily life to improve their well being and quality of life.
2011: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA IN DIGITAL BANKING In 2011, only 40% of the Colombian population had access to a financial product according to the Global Findex of the World Bank. This low penetration of financial products in the country showed the importance of generating financial and social inclusion processes to Colombians in order to boost the acquisition and usage of financial services.
Adjustments were made to financial regulation in 2011 to allow financial institutions to offer a new type of products with no paperwork and remotely to open it, and without leaving out the stability and security of the financial system as a whole. Before these changes were made, customers needed to go to a bank branch to fill out documents in order to get a savings account, making the process complex and expensive. Thanks to these changes, several banks began to offer savings accounts with a simplified process through cell phones; In this path DaviPlata became the leader and pioneer in the implementation of this type of financial products with a simple and easy process of acquisition. These regulatory modifications boost financial inclusion in Colombia as more banks started to offer these products.
DAVIPLATA: A PRODUCT IN CONSTANT DEVELOPMENT
Also, access to financial products of rural and low income population was limited and it presented a significant gap compared to the urban population. This lack of access responded to different types of barriers, some related to the supply, like physical presence of bank branches or the costs associated with the products, but some other limitations were related to customers itself like the lack of knowledge of the products available or even the perception of no need for the products.
In 2012, Banco Davivienda launched DaviPlata, a financial product that seeks a closer relationship of clients with the bank of those who were unbanked. The development of DaviPlata was possible thanks to the multiple efforts of different areas of Banco Davivienda to design and implement a 100% digital product that is handled directly from a cell phone, with a simplified, practical, easy to use opening process, and without costs or commissions to the client.
Taking into account these problems, the colombian financial industry, along with the regulatory and supervisory entities, undertook the task of promoting financial inclusion in Colombia by allowing the offering of products adapted to the customers’ needs and eliminating the existing barriers when interacting with the bank.
DaviPlata was initially developed on the SIM Tool Kit - STK technology, which allowed any Colombian, with a cell phone and ID number, to have the product. This allowed DaviPlata to reach every colombian with a complete and wide range product indistinct of its location or income. DaviPlata’s adoption and adaptation
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