BPC to support digital banking services for Powwi in Colombia

By Edlyn Cardoza

BPC, the world-leading digital payments provider, recently announced a strategic partnership with Powwi, licensed as a deposit-taking institution (Sociedad Especializada en Depósitos y Pagos Electrónicos – SEDPE), one of Colombia’s most successful payment companies and a champion of financial inclusion.

Under the terms of the five-year agreement, Powwi will implement BPC’s SmartVista suite to manage its customers’ transactional service requirements and help drive growth across the country.

Used by over 350 financial institutions across 100 countries, SmartVista Platform offers a selection of industry-leading modules which can be used as microservices to deliver a complete end-to-end banking and payment experience or as a standalone.

Powwi will implement the platform to deliver a superior, faster, and relevant experience to their customers safely and conveniently. BPC’s SmartVista will drive internet and mobile devices, offering vital, real-time banking services such as balances and account information, fund transfers, bill payments, and payment of services. It will also simplify the ability to open online accounts for transactions with a complete digital security scheme.

“We are honored to have been selected as the issuing processor provider for all of Powwi’s debit and prepaid cards,” said Juliana Peña, VP of Sales Andean Region of BPC. “Our five-year alliance will allow us to work closely with Powwi, one of the most innovative digital financial wallets in the region and an impressive force for good. The company launched with an ambition to make it possible for anyone to make their digital payments, including the unbanked. Together we can help Powwi to achieve this goal and more – and we are proud to do so with the assistance of a fantastic team on the ground.”

Established in 2017, Powwi rose to prominence by focusing on promoting greater financial inclusion through FinTech payments innovation. Its banking technology was created to serve the unbanked population in Colombia through simple, easy-to-access services with smart mobile payment features and virtual wallets.

According to Luisa Fernanda Cárdenas Sánchez, President at Powwi, this alliance represents an opportunity to expand the paytech’s service offering to its broad consumer base in Colombia and to also enhance the prosperity of society. “Financial inclusion is a key driver for the country’s economic growth and has significant effects in the overall development of those that cannot access basic banking services. With BPC’s platform, Powwi can do more to close the wealth gap and offer better and more convenient services for all.”

She added, “BPC will support and enable next-generation payment services for our digital debit and prepaid cards, branded Visa or Mastercard. In addition, it will manage the processing of all national and international transactions, as well as enable effective fraud management with the SmartVista Fraud Management suite, which provides all the necessary digital security features to mitigate risk and to ensure the successful use of our services across the country.”

Powwi promotes financial inclusion under an end-to-end digital strategy, offering loans and savings to a vast population that still does not have formal financial services. It achieves this business goal by leveraging an innovative aggregator model for microfinance institutions, which is used to disburse small loans and support bank account services and grant debit and prepaid cards branded Visa and Mastercard.

“With this alliance Powwi will have access to our highly experienced team,” added Peña from BPC. “Together we will achieve implementation agility and support during the entire project. We will also offer economic flexibility and our expert knowledge of banking regulation in the Colombian market. This will help to speed up deployment in the digital economy so that Powwi can continue its amazing work across the country.”

Latin America is one of the regions with the fastest-growing number of Internet users globally. By the end of 2022, nearly 76% of the continent’s population will be online, according to Internet World Stats; In Colombia, out of the 51.39 million inhabitants that make up the country, 35.50 million are Internet users, with broadband connectivity reaching nearly 70% of the nation.