Deporte

Yesterday the summit began between the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac)with an investment announcement from the EU of more than 45,000 million euros (US$50,584 million) for Latin America.

The investments will go until 2027 through the Global Gateway program for environmentally sustainable projects in all the countries of the region.

In the case of Colombia, the multimillion-dollar EU fund will allocate a part of the resources to the construction of the second line of the Bogotá Metroa 15.8 kilometer extension of line one.

“The first line of the Metro is at 20% completion so that it can be released in 2028. Now the second of the four multilateral bank loans that supports the contracting of the second line of the Bogotá Metro, the first underground and that will benefit another 2.5 million inhabitants”, said the mayoress of Bogotá, Claudia López, from Brussels.

The second project in the transport sector that is in the sights of the European Union is the acquisition of 1,500 additional electric buses to contribute to the sustainable transition of public transport in the country.

In the digital sector, the EU also has on its investment agenda the increase in connectivity in the country to reach 85% coverage by 2026. This is planned to be launched through three pillars that are connectivity for “Peace Total”, cybersecurity, and the creation of a space agency.

A fourth project that is being worked on in Colombia and that would have European investment It is the management of wastewater from the Canoas WWTP, which the EU also cataloged as one of the priorities for this 2023.

And finally, the EU also plans to leave investments for the production of green hydrogen and renewable energy, in addition to other natural solutions for adaptation to climate change.

“From the first study to the contract for the first Metro line it took us 40 years. And now, from the first study to the completion of the second line, it took us three years,” said Mayor López.

Another investment priority for the EU is the development of a taxonomy for economic activities considered environmentally sustainable, such as green bond initiatives and access to financing.

“We want to invest in large infrastructure projects. European investments will try to create value chains. It seems fundamental to me that the added value is maintained at the local level, so that together we can have resilient supply chains”, said the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, after announcing the 45,000 million euros for Latin America.

The European official added that there are already more than 135 projects in preparation, ranging from green hydrogen to fundamental critical materials. The list, which includes the aforementioned projects in Colombia, was drawn up in close collaboration with the Spanish Presidency and is the basis for future dialogues with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The EU-LAC Global Gateway investment agenda will be carried out during the EU-Celac summit through the initiatives of Team Europe, which is made up of the EU, its Member States, development financing institutions, including the European Investment Bank (EIB), export credit agencies and all other public sources of financing. The business conference is also coordinated by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America.

Financing for the second metro line

The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) will contribute US$255 million for the second line of the Bogotá Metro. “We are very happy because we all feel like Bogota, it is the capital city and we want to see it better and better. Of course, he will put his grain of sand in the bank, but not only with financing, but with technical support over time and the possibility that we continue to build better infrastructure in Bogotá”, affirmed the president of CAF, Sergio Díaz Granados, in the framework of the EU-Celac Summit in Brussels.

*Invited by the Commission

The technological services company for the financial system, uFlow which resides in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud and allows changes to the rules of banking entities to grant credits automatically and quickly, sealed a strategic alliance with Truora, the company specialized in authentication and identity validation, to develop a solution that will allow companies in this sector to automate credit decisions.

With the agreement, technological progress will allow different unbanked sectors of society to access financial products such as loans, credit cards, buy-now-pay-later products, etc.

Santiago Etchegoyen, co-founder of uFlow, assured that the new technological solution combines its decision engine with the authentication and communication tools of Truoraproviding financial institutions with a complete and secure platform to streamline and optimize their credit evaluation process.

“With this alliance, banks, fintechs, retailers, and financial entities of all kinds, such as cooperatives, will be able to access a tool that is very easy and practical to use.with which they will not require a technology team to automate and carry out the credit evaluation process, and which will guarantee security and efficiency at each stage of the evaluation”, highlighted Etechegoyen.

The solution also includes an automatic validation process that complies with Know Your Customer and AML regulations. (Anti-Money Laundering), which guarantee a safe and reliable onboarding process. While companies in the sector can verify the identity of applicants.

No one is exempt from suffering a calamity, be it a work or car accident, some damage at home, or even the loss of a valuable personal object, which is why people are increasingly aware of the importance of having a secure to protect them in case of any bad moment.

And it is that this is an industry that has been growing constantly, because according to the financial figures report of the Superfinanciera, cut to April, the value of issued premiums amounted to $16 trillion, $2.9 trillion higher than that registered in the same month of 2022that is, there was a real annual variation of 8.2%.

Here the companies of life insurance, which contributed to the growth of the industry in greater proportion than their P&C peers (including cooperatives). In fact, the latter reported premiums for $7.8 trillion and a real annual variation of 7.4%, while life insurance registered $8.2 trillion, with growth of 8.9%.

In line with this, the Financial Superintendence indicated that the behavior of the GDP coincides with the dynamism in the acquisition of policies, a situation that has maintained the penetration indicator of the sector around 3.4%, with 1.9% in insurance companies. life and 1.5% in general insurance (including cooperatives).

Now, the business lines that contribute the greatest proportion to premium growth are risks
employment, group life, social security and automobiles. According to the SFC, “the automobile line contributes to nominal growth with 4.29 percentage points (pp). For their part, the group life, pension insurance and occupational risk lines together did so with 10.09 pp”.

Financial results

As is well known, this has been a sector with notorious growth, and that is that, according to the SFC report, The profits to April were $2.1 trillion, in fact, due to the positive results of the entities of safe generals and lifewhich reported $635,700 million, while the latter yielded $1.4 trillion.

On the other hand, capitalization companies obtained positive results for $2,852 million.

In terms of assets, the unit that achieved the highest figure was also life insurance with $86.8 trillion, followed by general insurance with $37.4 trillion.

Through ClaroPay, small businesses now have access to the world of credit even if they are not in the financial system, this through the alliance that the wallet has with the young fintech Quipu. Its CEO, Mercedes Bidart, explained how the platform and its plan for 15,000 clients are progressing.

How does the alliance with Claro work?

Quipu is a fintech that gives productive loans to small businesses digitally, what we really did is bridge the information gap that exists in small informal businesses where by not knowing it, not knowing how it works, how much they are selling and not having a bank account, it is very difficult for banking institutions to attend to it. We use that data, the smartphone and artificial intelligence to be able to assess the risk in an alternative way.

We have been with Claro since February with an alliance to be able to serve ClaroPay users who have a small business and who want to access Quipu credit. We are in the Claro Pay wallet, users can access through their wallet, enter and find a button that says Quipu credits and they can directly apply the credit, obviously they can also apply the credit from any other channel that we have, such as It is the app or by WhatsApp.

How is the complement offered by Claro?

Claro notifies the client that the credit exists with Quipu, sends notifications, push and SMS, leading its clients to access through the wallet where is the Quipu credits button. They can also request it by downloading our application.

How much are the amounts?

The average requests are $300,000. But the most we have loaned is $3 million, although it is an amount that can increase.

And how do they compete with rates?

We are always two points below usury.

How is the balance of credit placements going?

We have received more than 20,000 applications with the alliance, we have seen too much success, 70% of the clients that come to us are through this channel. If the client does not have a microbusiness, they are not subject to credit, it happens a lot that people apply for a consumer loan and we give productive ones. So far we have already placed more than 5,000 credits.

How do you expect to end the year?

We hope to close the year, reaching more and more customers through the Claro alliance, also increasing the amounts, that is, that they are recurring customerswho can grow hand in hand with us and Claro, who can participate in our educational courses, we have some through WhatsApp once the client is part of our tribe, we call them businessmen, where we give them training for their business .

We seek to continue strengthening the alliance in the sense that the amounts continue to growthat they can continue to participate in educational courses and that through the wallet they can find more and more benefits, both from our network and from Claro.

How did you close that first year?

We have placed more than 5,000 loans, we have grown more than 20% month by month since we started in January 2022 on the coast with the first loans, we are already throughout the country30 people work at Quipu, half are 100% technology people. We obviously seek to expand further in the country, reach more than 15,000 clients and continue to strengthen our technology team, to be the best in being able to predict risk in this segment.