Based on the Microsoft cloud, Bankingly provides web services and mobile applications to microfinance institutions in rural areas of Latin America, with the objective of promoting digital inclusion.
Bankingly is a company that provides digital channels to financial institutions for the virtualization of their interactions with end customers. Its mission is to promote the democratization of people’s access to financial resources, regardless of their socioeconomic status or location, ensuring that financial inclusion reaches all sectors of society.
Since its inception, Bankingly chose Azure for hosting, and thus became a digitally native company. The multinational company began its activity in a sector that often has difficulty accessing technology: the microfinance sector, made up of cooperatives, municipal savings banks, finance companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, among others.
Azure, the cloud platform for hosting applications
Bankingly provides mobile and web banking customer care and operations services to financial institutions, enabling them to digitize and automate their customer interactions. Some of the mobile and web services included in the Bankingly platform are digital view of account statements, credit card payment, payment of services, recurring payment schedule, new product requests, even digital messaging services for the deployment of marketing campaigns and segmented collection actions.
In this sense, Bankingly is responsible for creating and maintaining the digital infrastructure of microfinance companies, empowering them to focus their attention on the success of their business. In fact, the company releases updated versions of its Android and iOS platform on a regular basis and offers active monitoring. Many of Bankingly’s clients are small and medium-sized institutions with a majority presence in rural areas of Latin America.
Bankingly’s web and mobile services were created with Azure App Service, a 100% managed solution for building, deploying, and scaling applications. As a result, this platform is completely hosted in the cloud. «This service allows us to scale our entire system automatically. And the best part: we only pay for what we use,» explains Javier Fradiletti, Chief Product Officer.
In addition, data management occurs from SQL Managed Instance, an intelligent and scalable cloud database service that combines the SQL Server database engine and the advantages of a continuous and fully manageable platform-as-a-service.
«To connect the platform with the financial core of each institution in a secure way, we use the Azure Relays service,» adds Fradiletti. Azure Relay allows services running on a corporate network to be securely exposed to the public cloud. As a service for financial institutions, Bankingly considers security to be a critical issue. «We couldn’t function without Azure DDoS Protection Standard; it’s part of the services we use to make sure we don’t suffer any attacks,» he emphasizes.
Financial inclusion as a starting point
«Bankingly’s application can replicate all the financial functionalities that a traditional institution has,» relates the Chief Product Officer who also says: «this includes viewing information such as accounts, balances, savings accounts, loans, lines of credit, cards, as well as making transfers or applying for lines of credit or loans.»
«While we have the channels, we replicate the instance of mobile and web application, and customize it for each one,» explains Alvaro Culqui, Business Development Manager at Bankingly. «If a user enters the web page of one of our clients, he will see the solution with the logo and the color palette related to the brand identity of each institution. Products are also customized according to what it offers,» he adds.
The multinational company also has a User Engagement department that is responsible for working with each institution on digital training programs. Fradiletti says that «from this area we train the collaborators of each institution; a digital and physical marketing plan is created, and advertising pieces are elaborated».
Thanks to Bankingly, several microfinance institutions have reduced branch service costs, optimized the response time for queries and streamlined the application process for new loans. All with the benefit of having access to information 24 hours a day, all year
Digital services provided by Bankingly and Financoop
Financoop is a Central Savings and Credit Cooperative and Mutual Fund in Ecuador that offers financial products and services to microfinance institutions, mainly savings and credit cooperatives. At the moment, with 134 member institutions that constitute approximately 90% of the sector’s assets, Financoop provides members who wish to join this channel with a digital web platform and a mobile application for the attention of its members through virtual services provided by its ally Bankingly.
«More than three years ago we had the vision of incorporating our member cooperatives and mutuals into the digitalization process to be at the forefront,» says Marín Bautista, General Manager of Financoop. «We chose Bankingly because its business model matched the needs of our associates and the market,» he adds.
Bankingly remains in compliance with Ecuadorian regulations and also provides close support. Since Financoop began the project of digitalization of financial services for its associated institutions, the multinational company has provided workshops and training to explain its operation and the benefits of providing digital channels.
By August 2021, 22 cooperatives will keep their channel in production. This represents 60,000 registered users, and up to 1 million transactions per month, a number that
has risen as a result of the pandemic – previously 250,000 transactions per month. «This shows us that the virtual tools have been very well used,» Bautista remarks, adding that there is still plenty of room for growth and innovation in cooperatives and mutuals to adapt to market needs, «it is only a matter of time before all our members continue to adopt digital channels.»
«With the use of our platform, each cooperative can break the geographic barrier, obtain a greater reach, and increase its client portfolio. If these types of entities do not remain competitive, they lose out to large companies, such as banks,» says Álvaro Culqui, Business Development Manager. «In Latin America, 50% of people do not have access to credit. Our mission is focused on providing digital channels to microfinance institutions that help to democratize this possibility».
For the future, Bankingly plans to deepen its use of artificial intelligence and continue working towards the goal of financial inclusion reaching all sectors of society.
We train the collaborators of each institution; a digital and physical marketing plan is created, and advertising pieces are elaborated. Azure Apps Services allows us to scale our entire system automatically. From there, we manage all the communication channels, whether they are web or applications, we get all the information from there.
Javier Fradiletti: Chief Product Officer, Bankingly
We could not function without Azure DDoS Protection Standard; it is part of the services we use to ensure we do not suffer any attack «We couldn’t work without DDOS Azure Protection Standard, this is part of the services we use to ensure we do not suffer any threat.”
Javier Fradiletti: Chief Product Officer, Bankingly
Using of our platform, each cooperative can break the geographic barrier, obtain a greater reach, and increase its customer base.
Álvaro Culqui: Business Development Manager, Bankingly
