Invest in financial services in Colombia: the boom for foreign investments in fintech
The financial system in Colombia is broad and well-established. The country boasts large banks with years of experience and an infrastructure developed over decades to provide users and businesspeople with a financial ecosystem full of opportunities, a defining feature of the country of beauty.
Investing in Colombia means capitalizing on these opportunities and engaging with a sector that continually innovates within the digital ecosystem. Colombia is a country that improves its internet connectivity every year and has a domestic market of more than 50 million people. Here, we will show you how this sector works in the country and what investing in fintech in Colombia can offer you.
This is how the financial system works in Colombia
According to The Colombian Central Bank, this sector comprises financial institutions and their managed funds. The following types of institutions fall under the supervision of the Financial Superintendency: i) credit establishments, ii) financial services companies, and iii) other financial institutions.
Credit establishments include entities such as banks, financial corporations and traditional financing companies, among others. These establishments focus on raising capital to generate loans for their clients.
Financial services companies include entities such as trust companies, pension and severance fund management companies, and brokerage firms, among others. These are considered financial institutions and provide specialized advice in resource administration, among other functions.
Finally, other financial institutions, such as special official institutions, capitalization companies and insurance companies, provide a variety of financial services to their users.
Now that we are clear on how the financial sector works in Colombia, we can move forward to understand the fintech sector and its importance for the national economy.
The fintech sector and the financial transformation in Colombia
The fintech sector is characterized by integrating digital financial services into their offering. This is why innovation is a fundamental value for this sector, as it incorporates digital tools available on the Internet to offer new services or improve existing ones.
In this field, Colombia already has extensive experience, with the support of large companies that offer financial services and have integrated the digital ecosystem into their businesses or were born in the digital world to offer new goods and services.
In addition, the sector is also driven by Colombian talent, which has created an entire digital ecosystem for financial services and has high quality education. The country has several universities with great recognition in the region and offer studies at different levels in the fintech field.
Thanks to this and to an entrepreneurial mindset, professionals from the country of beauty have stood out in the region and have been recognized by international companies, offering their services from Colombia to other countries worldwide.
These advantages have already been discovered by several international companies, which have leveraged them to grow nationally and regionally. A clear example of this is Nu Bank, founded by Colombian David Vélez, which already has 100 million clients in Latin America and one million in Colombia.
Colombia was the company’s most recent market, since it started its operations in Brazil. However, the country has given a warm welcome to Nu, as it has gained a significant amount of customers in a short time.
Nu was born and remains in the digital ecosystem, offering a credit card and a debit card that started with a waiting list of hundreds of thousands of people in 2024, showing the interest of Colombians for this type of goods.
Another example that stands out is the case of Nequi, a project promoted by Bancolombia, a traditional Colombian bank that saw the potential of the technology adoption for financial services. Nequi has found a wide acceptance in Colombia by achieving more than 18 million users throughout the country on its platform, familiarizing the Colombian population to the management of money through devices such as cell phones in the digital ecosystem.
In addition, platforms are already operating in the country, and this allows Colombians to access stock exchanges in different countries around the world, giving them the possibility of participating in this kind of investments with the backing of entities that provide greater security to these operations.
Finally, traditional banks have already sought to innovate and now offer digital platforms and mobile applications, giving users greater access to their money from their own cell phones, anywhere in the world.
For all these reasons, we invite you to invest in Colombia, the country of beauty. A place full of opportunities and with all the motivation to innovate in different industrial and economic sectors. Invest in Colombia and take advantage of the opportunities that the fintech sector has for you. Learn more about investing in Colombia here.