Banco Promerica’s Digital Transformation Strategy

Banco Promerica is recognized of being the Digital Banking Services of the Year and Excellence in Financial Inclusion Dominican Republic 2022

Banco Promerica Dominican Republic has more than 20 years of local presence, with emphasis on personal clients, small and medium enterprises, corporate and institutional clients, as well as Credit Cards and payments businesses. A member of Grupo Promerica (through the holding company Promerica Financial Corporation), a financial institution comprised of nine banks that operate in Central America, Ecuador, the Cayman Islands, and the Dominican Republic. Through the financial services that Grupo Promerica offers, it permanently contributes to financial inclusion, as well as to the economic progress of the different societies and communities it serves.

We had the honor of having held an interview with Carlos Julio Camilo, who is currently the executive president of Banco Promerica Dominican Republic and has more than 15 years of experience related to Business, Risk, Treasury and Finance of banking areas.

He joined Pan Finance to bring us up to date on Promerica’s commendable progress, especially in the digital-banking realm. We are grateful to have had this interview.

First of all, your bank has seen an impressive rate of growth, can you give us an overview of this?

Currently, our financial institution has achieved an important growth at the end of 2021, reaching a gross financial margin of US$35.2 million, assets of around US$844.8 million (a 57% increase over December 2020), and a loan portfolio of US$377 million, a 46% growth rate compared to December of 2020.

In the last 3 years we have been positioned among the 3 banks with the highest asset growth in the Dominican financial system at the end of December 2021, becoming the 5^th private bank in the country.

Grupo Promerica is one of the most important regional financial groups in The Americas, with total assets of around US$18 billion, equity of around US$1,450 million, as well as more than 2.6 million clients, and a network of customer service from more than 755 branches and more than 1,100 ATMs.

Digital transformation has played a big part in this success. How does Banco Promerica support innovation and digital transformation?

Digital transformation has become our focus to continue bringing our financial services to the different segments, delivering day by day a memorable customer experience with the closeness that characterizes our corporate culture. During 2021 we continued expanding our capacities in different contact platforms. We also continued to strengthen our technological infrastructure, which has allowed us to incorporate new solutions that give our clients greater autonomy in the acquisition of products and services, as well as in carrying out transactions quickly and safely through these means.

Promerica’s Digital Banking continues to increase with more than 400,000 transactions through our mobile app “Promerica Móvil RD” and Internet Banking platform during 2021. This represents a year-over-year increase above 75%. In that same order, nearly 40,000 clients have enrolled to access our digital platforms in 2021. The growth in the participation of the digital transactions stands out, which already represent 43% of the total transactions carried out by our clients.

New technology has been at the top of your bank’s agenda.  How has this impacted on the process of your digital transformation?

Simplifying the process of acquiring products and services is key and during 2021 we launched a set of new functionalities to provide greater accessibility to financial users. Within these features is Digital Onboarding, which allows customers to create an account from the app “Promerica Móvil RD” in less than seven minutes. We also launched “Desembolsos Empresariales”, which simplifies credit line and loan disbursements through digital banking; with a direct credit to the customer’s account in less than ten minutes. Another example is the facility to offer Referenced Payments, a solution for our business customers to receive payments from their clients in the more than 600 offices, our partner PagaTodo has throughout the Dominican Republic. 

In terms of Digital Payments, Promerica has a differentiated value proposition with “Promerica Pay”, a digital wallet that allows our credit card holders to pay through phones and smart watches. It is also important to mention that Banco Promerica is the first bank in the Dominican Republic to allow customers to use their credit and debit cards on Garmin and Fitbit wallets, providing our customers a simpler and better payment experience. 

It seems that Promerica has a strong vision engendered by your digital transformation?

Promoting digital transformation to bring a renewed proposal to clients every day is already part of our DNA and all our employees have assumed this task with passion, leadership, and empowerment. Likewise, the involvement of our board has been key in promoting our culture as an institution, prioritizing the necessary resources for the execution of projects, and generating value through a close, innovative, and agile digital proposal.

2021 Digital Indicators

• More than 400,000 financial transactions by the end of December 2021, which represent 76% increase in digital transactions compared to 2020
• More than 30,000 app downloads in 2021
• More than 40% of our customers transactions are digital, this doesn’t include Credit and Debit Card Purchases
• Over 5,000 transactions have been done through Promerica Pay