Information technologies are challenging almost every industry in the world, and the financial sector is no stranger to this transformation. With platforms that allow for peer-to-peer lending, making transactions without traditional banking, or even mobile shopping without a credit card, banks are hungry for innovation to cope with this reality.
That is why the Uruguayan developer of software for banking, Bantotal (De Larrobla & Asociados), implemented Bantotal Developers, a platform for entrepreneurs or companies to create applications for the financial industry.
«Hoy la banca atraviesa por una disrupción fuerte impulsada por el cambio tecnológico. Estamos frente a una transformación en la forma en que se relacionan los bancos y sus clientes, donde en cada momento que hay una transacción existe una oportunidad de aportar valor», explicó el jefe de Planificación Estratégica y Management Control, Antonio De Los Campos.
Through this platform, Bantotal offers companies and entrepreneurs who have an idea aimed at the financial industry, from technical and marketing advice to financial support. In addition, the solutions generated will be made available to Bantotal's client banks in the 14 countries in which it operates.
A cambio, Bantotal obtiene una participación accionaria en la empresa creada. Según explicó De Los Campos, existen tres formas de asociarse a Bantotal Developers. Una dirigida a emprendedores que sean desarrolladores de software; otra para personas que tengan una idea, pero que no tienen los conocimientos necesarios para desarrollarla por sus propios medios, ni capacidad financiera para contratar a alguien que lo haga; y una tercera mediante la cual empresas consolidadas se unen a Bantotal para desarrollar una solución tecnológica. Plataformas como la que centraliza y ordena los descuentos de la tarjeta de crédito, Avivate, la de ahorro, Deappoco, o la de computación cognitiva aplicada a la banca, Ctarget ya están asociadas a Bantotal Developers. «Queremos sumar a la mayor cantidad de emprendedores y empresas que tengan una idea de negocio, para poder asegurarle a los bancos la ultima innovación para que se lo ofrezcan a sus clientes», concluyó De Los Campos.
CTarget
The consulting firm CPA Ferrere and the software developer Idatha worked together to design CTarget, which is able to process unstructured information from social networks and, thanks to algorithms, predict behaviors. This platform is one of the examples of collaboration between companies that allows Bantotal Developers. While CPA Ferrere contributed its expertise in predictive models, Idatha did its part by making natural language processing tools available.
¿Qué probabilidad hay de que un cliente decida solicitar un préstamo? A través de modelos predictivos a los que se les cargan datos como edad, nivel socioeconómico y estado de cuenta, los bancos pueden tener una idea. Para estos modelos, más datos significa mayor precisión. Es ahí donde entran en juego las herramientas de computación cognitiva, que son capaces de interpretar data «no estructurada», como imágenes, el significado de los adjetivos, el contexto de la conversación, y la semántica empleada. Según explicó De Los Campos, con esta información extraída de las redes sociales, los bancos sabrán con mayor precisión qué ofrecerle a sus clientes.
Avivate
A platform that organizes and centralizes the chaotic offer of discounts provided by banks' credit and debit cards. This is how Avivate works, an application developed by the Uruguayan companies Bantotal (De la Robla y Asociados) and Dvelop, which is already available in the iOS and Android stores. When entering the application, users choose the banks from which they have credit or debit cards, and the categories they are most interested in, such as clothing and accessories, gastronomy, technology and entertainment, among others. Based on that, specific searches can be made by category and only for those cards that the user owns. In addition to indicating the discount percentage and the name of the store in question, you can see which days the different benefits are available, for which products -if there is any specification in this regard- and where the nearest branch of the chosen store is located.
In addition, the application allows you to calculate how much you save on a purchase by applying the discount offered by the card. According to De Los Campos, the business model of this platform is the sale of advertising, where the banks themselves can send notifications to users about discounts in certain stores.
Deappoco
For Deappoco every peso counts. This platform, developed by Federico Armando, Rodrigo Díaz and María Inés Carriquiry, allows saving at any time in a simple way, by programming -for example- that a percentage of the salary is destined to a savings account, specially created for that purpose, and in turn offers tools to measure the evolution and monitor the objectives set.The application also allows that in case of a saving -because the person did not buy a certain product for example-, the money that was not spent can be transferred to the savings account created by the platform.
This is a case of an idea generated by a group of entrepreneurs who joined Bantotal to execute the project. Díaz highlighted the importance of being part of the solutions menu of Bantotal, which is the main provider of digital banking for more than 50 banks in 14 Latin American countries. The platform was presented in the first edition of the Hackathon of the Itaú bank, where it won third place. Currently, this bank and the start-up are in talks to offer this platform to its customers.
Source: The Observer
Connect