dale! provider of Banking as a Service.

dale! is the fintech of Grupo Aval, Colombia’s largest financial conglomerate, which competes in the digital wallet market, having reached almost one million customers since its launch in 2020. It allows individuals and businesses to have an electronic deposit with which to pass, pay and receive money, it is interoperable with the functionalities of transfers to a mobile phone number, e-commerce payments, free debit card, withdrawals in the ATM network of Aval Banks, payment of public and private services and mobile recharges, among others.

Since 2018 Grupo Aval began its process of product digitalisation, the creation of ecosys- tems (mobility) and the automation of banking operations to reduce the cost structure, with great success. In this context, dale! arises as an innovation project within the Group, and its vision is to integrate all the actors of the digital payments ecosystem in a single interoperable technological solution, whose services are exposed in more than 20 APIs that allow the development of alliances for the provision of Banking as a Service (BaaS).

Within Grupo Aval, dale! is the first entity to offer BaaS. From the beginning, dale! was developed under an open source infrastructure to be able to expose financial services to other companies, which can also operate covered by the fintech banking license. dale! is also a pioneer in Colombia offering BaaS to third parties that are not part of the same financial or business group, allowing other digital plat- forms to integrate services such as opening electronic deposits, enabling balances or issu- ing co-branded debit cards, a very attractive strategy to provide added value and build cus- tomer loyalty.

DALE! ALLIES IN BANKING AS A SERVICE

Today dale! has important allies such as LifeMiles, Plurall and Walo, among others, enabling Open Finance collaboration scenarios, and finding new ways to attract customers and bankarisation.

“We have more than 50 part- ners interested in our Banking as a Service thanks to the ease of implementation and the legal security we offer our partners, who know that they have a partner that guarantees com- pliance with regulations and has the backing and financial muscle of Grupo Aval”, reports José Manuel Ayerbe, CEO of dale!

Each partner in turn can operate under differ- ent models, which allows dale! BaaS services have different use cases. In the example of LifeMiles, they sought to offer a new func- tionality from their application: a debit card from which their customers could make digital payments and earn miles, with the option of evolving to a physical card, and also incor- porating NFC payment technology with the tokenisation standards of Visa, their franchise partner. In this way, members of the Avianca loyalty programme, one of the most important airlines in Latin America, can access dale! ser- vices through LifeMiles Pay.

Leyla Abullarade, from the Management of digital channels and the LifeMiles mobile wal- let, tells how dale! has allowed them to have a more complete offer to customers, because now, in addition to enjoying all the possibilities to redeem miles in its extensive travel net- work or commercial allies, LifeMiles members can earn miles for all their purchases from a debit product, digital and accepted throughout Colombia. “The BaaS integration with dale! al- lows us to extend services from the banking industry to other areas, to offer truly integrated experiences to consumers, creating combined and more complete products,” said Leyla.

Through partnerships, dale! has also found new ways to work for financial inclusion, reaching different segments of the population. This is the case of Walo, a Colombian fintech that seeks to offer a practical solution to the most disadvantaged strata to provide them with real access to banking services, reaching them not only with a digital payment platform provided by dale! but also with physical points of experience, which are service integrators.

“From the alliance with dale! we highlight the great contributions they have brought to our Fintech, especially for its technological in- frastructure that has made possible a large number of financial movements by our users. We also want to recognise the great human resources dedicated to the technological integration of both platforms, who have demon- strated their willingness and dedication to service”. said David Bedoya, CEO of Walo.

Another of our strategic allies is Plurall, a fin- tech focused on offering microcredits to small businesses and entrepreneurs who cannot find adequate financing for their businesses in traditional proposals. Plurall, once the micro- credit is approved, makes the disbursement in an electronic wallet provided by dale! and gives them a dale! debit card as a tool to man- age the money. – Plurall debit card.

Federico Gómez, Co-Founder and CEO of Plurall, explains the reasons why they chose dale! as a provider: “For us when choosing our BaaS provider, it was essential that it was pro- jected as a long-term relationship and it was very important that four main requirements were met: i) clear strategy towards BaaS, ii) support, iii) regulatory compliance and iv) busi- ness synergies.

We have seen the evolution of some BaaS providers that work with the most successful fintechs in the US and Europe, and we have been able to identify the best practices in the industry and dale! meets all of the above requirements, to the point that, in our opinion, it is the best qualified BaaS provider in Latin America. We don’t know of anyone in the region that has such a clear strategy, is better prepared, has better support, is as rigorous at the regulatory level and with whom we see greater synergies between our businesses,” says Gómez. – says Gómez.

INVESTMENT IN INNOVATION

dale! is investing heavily in innovation as one of the pillars underpinning the company’s strategy. These investments are being made so that the growth expected for 2023 and beyond is supported by a stable and secure platform in terms of infrastructure.

“In the coming years we expect an exponential growth of customers, to ensure that it is sus- tainable, we are making an investment of more than 30 million dollars that will strengthen the technological infrastructure of dale!, ensuring a stable platform and excellent service,” said José Manuel Ayerbe.

Pan Finance Award as “BaaS Provider of the Year and Excellence in Digital Transformation – Colombia 2023”.

The efforts made by dale! have paid off, hav- ing been awarded by Pan Finance in the category of Banking as a Service Provider of the Year & Excellence in Digital Transformation – Colombia 2023. “This recognition is for us the confirmation that we are making steady progress in Open Finance. Our allies can be sure that in dale! they have the ideal partner to meet their objectives and thanks to them, this recognition has been possible”. – concluded José Manuel.

Potential partners who are interested in learn- ing more about dale!’s BaaS services can contact dale! at meinteresa@dale.com.co.