Nubank CEO David Vélez announced that the Brazilian unicorn Nubank started to open offices in Colombia to launch operations.
The President of Colombia Iván Duque was in the launching event, organized by the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications.
The announcement has a symbolic background. The operation is more than a simple expansion movement of one of the largest fintechs in Brazil.
The CEO of Nubank is coming home
Nubank founder David Vélez was born in Medellín, Colombia. However, due to fate, he ended up working in Brazil. There he realized the opportunity that existed in digital financial services. After getting around all the legal obstacles, he founded Nubank. This fintech is now one of the biggest unicorns in Latin America.
In 2019, Nubank began an internationalization process in Latin America. It announced that it would start operating in Argentina in March. In May of the same year, Nubank opened its offices in Mexico and began hiring staff. However, David Vélez seemed to have forgotten his home country, until this week when he announced his return home.
At the Nubank launch event in Colombia, Vélez mentioned that he has always had “his eyes set on what is happening in Colombia, what is happening in Colombia, on the opportunities that exist in this country.”
Duque commented on how Vélez went to Brazil and created a “one hundred percent digital bank”. He also remarked how he defeated the complexities of that country’s financial system.
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Plans for the next eight years
Nubank’s plans are to invest in the next eight years around 130 million dollars in Colombia. In addition, the fintech will create an engineering, design, and data center, in order to develop the new generation of financial services in Colombia.
One of the biggest challenges for the company is to train the human talent necessary to maintain this infrastructure. Hence, Duque pointed out that the Colombian government’s strategy is aimed at training programmers in two years “is the key metric”. The Colombian President also remarked that programmers are the raw material of the digital economy. For that reason, Colombia’s ambition is to train 100,000 programmers.
Vélez commented that “Latin Americans deserve a simpler, more transparent, and more humane financial experience.” He also explained that the bank was born from the conviction that “through technology, design, data science and a customer-centric vision we could create a new generation of financial services that make people’s lives easier. , without complexities or bureaucracy ”.
Nubank arrives to revolutionize the banking system of Colombia
The general manager of Nu Colombia is Catalina Bretón. In the bank’s presentation, she mentioned that the priority is to put the efficiency of technology at the service of the client and promote financial inclusion.
The executive pointed out that in Colombia between 70 and 85% of transactions are in cash and that the penetration of credit cards as the number of Colombians who have formal savings is still very low.
According to Bretón, one of the company’s objectives is to make it easier for any Colombian with Internet access to obtain a credit card. Therefore, Nubank seeks from those who want to start their financial life as those who seek an alternative to manage their money without ties or complications.
The first product in the portfolio that Nu Colombia plans to present in the country is an international Mastercard credit card. The product won’t have a handling fee. Also, users can control it through the Nu application.