In Ecuador Digital money management alternatives are growing. Mobile wallets and other tools are gaining traction. These days there are more tools that are used to make low-value payments digitally, especially through the mobile phone.
An example of this is the fintech PeiGo, which entered the market last September and is part of the Banco de Guayaquil group, launched its Pueblo Arrecho campaign. Is about a mockumentary (documentary with fiction) and a series of 20-second commercials, which, between true and somewhat fictional testimonies, tell the experience of Pueblo Arrecho, a town in the province of Manabí, located in the Chirijos canton, in which payment has been extended through PeiGo. The audiovisual products are built with actors from the town itself.
“We decided to call our campaign ‘Pueblo Arrecho’ because it is a town that dared to reinvent itself and began to use PeiGo. The concept of the campaign is to be ‘arrecho’, to be risky and dare to bet on modernity when accessing financial services, leaving behind the traditional cash”, indicates Santiago Lasso, Commercial Director of PeiGo.
For Rodrigo Andrade, CEO of PeiGo, beyond the successful experience in Pueblo Arrecho, What is interesting about the message of this campaign is being able to dare to use this new technological tool.
Andrade commented that at the moment in Ecuador there are already 23,000 clients who are carrying out operations through PeiGo, in small businesses and in person-to-person transactions. He explained that the goal remains reach 50,000 by the end of December. This initiative aims to bank those who have not had access to bank accounts up to now.
To obtain PeiGo the client must download the application and enter the basic information that is requested, having the identity card at hand. The process does not last more than 5 minutes and to do so, it must be taken into account that the phone must be connected to the internet.
With this procedure, the user will automatically have a Basic bank account in which you can receive, send, pay, recharge and even collect money digitally. “In this way, entrepreneurships and small businesses are positively impacted, since there are no additional charges and it is done immediately,” explains Andrade.
An application that already has a longer journey, Well, it was created in 2020, it’s Deuna! This is a Banco Pichincha app that allows you to pay and collect easily and without cash from a mobile device. This transaction is made through a QR code, a cell phone number or a bank account number.
This application that was launched in May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, has more than 550,000 users who have stopped using cash. More than 210,000 businesses that require more immediacy in their collections, not having to worry about the change or stop going to the agencies to deposit the day’s collection, they have found an answer to these needs.
The average value of each transaction through Deuna! is $33, which reflects the use of the app for day-to-day payments, of low amounts, displacing the use of cash.
to pay with Deuna! You also have to download the app on Google Play or the App Store. Registration is free with the Ecuadorian ID. If you do not have an account, you can open it from the app. You can pay with QR in establishments nationwide, just scan the Deuna QR code! Additionally, it is possible to pay anyone registered in Deuna! Or with an active Banco Pichincha account. You must enter the name of the contacts, the cell phone number or the account number. To charge establishments, find their QR code in the “charge” section of the app. It can be printed to display in business.
Payphone also falls into this category, although closely linked to those who have a credit card. It is a platform of financial autonomy. The main function is to allow any person or business, just by using their smartphone, to receive or send money from their debit or credit cards. Visa or Mastercard from any issuing bank.
The novelty is that it is not necessary any type of hardware specialized, nor resort to the use of POS devices (Point of Sale) to read a credit or debit card. Allows you to pay or collect from anywhere using a smartphone, regardless of whether it is a natural person or commercial premises. This innovative idea was born in Cuenca in 2014 by four young entrepreneurs who saw the need to democratize debit and credit card payments from any financial institution and in any establishment in the country.
Currently, the firm offers several facilities to manage digital money, through its application for individuals and its application for companies Payphone Business. Is fintech Ecuador offers a reloadable Mastercard Payphone Companion prepaid card, which allows you to recharge the Payphone digital balance to this card
payphone personas currently has around 360,000 users and in the last three years it has registered more than 4.6 million transactions, which is equivalent to more than $319.4 million in amount traded. So far this year, the application registers more than 2,293,606 in number of transactions and $144,357,274 in amount traded. It also works as a digital wallet, since it allows from the same user account -on your smartphone- to receive and send digital cash from cell phone to cell phone without having to charge a card or bank account.
Meanwhile, hehe mobile wallet (BIMO), an initiative of private banks, turned three years old in October, but never managed to take flight. In accordance with Pablo Narváez, who led the project two years ago, but he has already retired, and is now a consultant on issues related to electronic means of payment, unfortunately BIMO did not grow due to lack of support from the banks themselves: “it is currently still in force, but with very few transactions.” He explains that the banks made an investment in the platform, but in the end they did not give the necessary promotion and finally they chose to make their own mobile wallets individually.
However, consider that these they do not have the potential of BIMO, since it had the possibility of carrying out interbank operations, while the wallets of each bank do it with their own bank. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
