It is clear that Minsait Payments and Afterbanks Arcopay are driving the industry forward and achieving huge numbers in their respective areas, which is why Enrique has become a eminence when it comes to explaining emerging trends and opportunities in the financial sector.
Here is a summary of the session. We hope you enjoy it!
The importance of finding a suitable partner in terms of banking aggregation
Juanjo Gómez, Head of Marketing at Coinscrap Finance, made the introductions and welcomed Enrique to begin a very intense afternoon. His first question addressed the complexity of managing two business development management roles. Enrique explained that, in his case, it has arisen naturally due to his career of more than 15 years in the world of payment solutions.
Both reminded the audience that Minsait and Afterbanks are our partners, since the second one is part of our team of bank aggregation providers (open banking). And with Minsait payments we try to jointly reach the market. Juanjo then launched a question about the way in which both companies boost the Fintech sector in Spain and the international market.
Here’s a video with the complete webinar!
Adaptability and technology at the service of the industry
Enrique indicated that, being a company of the Indra group, they have been helping large financial entities both in Europe and Latam for years. The need to increase flexibility meant that they have practically become a FinTech. Agility is a fundamental point in their offer and they provide the industry with everything related to means of payment.
“Afterbanks was already born with that culture. It also came up for banks, but many of their users are FinTechs who need access to transactional data.”
Enrique Álvarez
In addition, they support companies that are dedicated to managing the administration and accounting of SMEs, which is why they work with practically all ERPs on the market.
“We are the ones with the best connectors.”
The regulation of open banking in Latam: The market is going faster
Compliance issues and the times faced by large financial institutions have made Minsait and Afterbanks confront multiple commercial challenges, but its Director indicated that the biggest one is operational. He highlighted the great work of his operations team, capable of processing 70 million units of data per month and adapting to the needs of each customer in record time.
At that time, Juanjo wanted to introduce the issue of open banking and open finance regulations:
“In Spain and Europe we share the PSD2 regulations, but in Latam each country has been advancing its own FinTech laws, as is the case of Mexico or Chile. It is expected that Colombia will join soon with a new regulation”.
Enrique expressed the uncertainty caused by this situation, even though they have been working without formal regulation for many years.
“This part is positive for the advancement and expansion of technology but, without regulations, there could be risks for the industry and users. In Europe there is a single payment space, while Latin America needs to regulate the FinTech that arises from the social need for banking of the population. It is a basic need. The important thing is that there are standards in all these countries”.
Enrique Álvarez
How to generate immediate adoption of new technologies
Enrique spoke of his consulting service in Latam to improve existing standards in payment systems “every month a new means of payment appears”, he commented. There are many new players and it is a very active market due to this pressing need to access banking services. “They attack uncovered use cases in a super agile way,” insisted Enrique.
“Mach in Chile has a closed model that is succeeding because everyone needs to make payments. In Latam, when a FinTech launches a tool that works better than previous ones (and improves people’s lives), its adoption is immediate”.
He admitted.
Juanjo wanted to take advantage of the occasion to ask the manager about his outstanding success stories.
Success stories and future prospects for the FinTech sector
Enrique highlighted the method they use to interact with entities and startups. They value the trust they generate with their partners thanks to their expertise and their developments in technology. “Our core is the processing part,” he said. He explained the importance of the user experience in the financial sector and the demands of a constantly growing sector.
Regarding the future, he wanted to highlight that credit and debit cards, as a digital asset (whether there is “plastic” or not) will continue to be one of the most powerful means of payment on the market. They will be used not only in shops, but will grow in other areas. Regarding open banking payments, where banks give up the payment capacity to a third party (as in the case of bizum), he believes that there will be new scenarios but with more concentrated players.
“Definitely,” he explained.
“Account to account is going to boost usage. The most optimal means of payment that exists is an immediate transfer”.
He stressed.
He predicted a great future for open finance and open data in Latin America in the next two years and recall the importance of being able to turn from B2C to B2B or B2C2B, as in the case of Coinscrap Finance.
We want to thank Enrique for participating in our Meets and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Until the next edition!
