The year 2020 left in Colombia close to 49,000 deaths from Covid-19 and a 6.8% decline in GDP. In 2021 it became the palliative. The National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) at the time pointed to a rebound in the economy and growth of 10.6% that not only brought a more positive outlook to the pockets of Colombian households, but also translated into greater banking.
That is, today nine out of ten Colombians have a financial product through which they are not only able to receive money, but also to send resources.
This trend, in which some 4 million Colombians participate, has made it possible to raise the country's banking level by more than 7.4 points by marking other financial products, mostly digital.
And the fact is that the opening of electronic accounts became a priority for many people, who in a state of vulnerability, were left without income for their livelihood during the pandemic. Thus, in order to be beneficiaries of the aid provided by the National Government, many opened accounts of this type through the Internet, which to date they continue to use as a means of managing and saving money.
During the lockdowns, the National Government designed and implemented the Solidarity Income and VAT Compensation cash transfer programs, which facilitated access to financial deposit products for populations in a state of vulnerability.
This was the reason for many users to open digital accounts on platforms such as Nequi, Daviplata and bank accounts. Nequi, for example, went from having two million users before the pandemic to 11 million and Daviplata went from 6 million to 14 million at the same time.
Traditional banking, through its virtual portals, was not left behind either, since more than 70% of transactions were carried out through this method, encouraging not only the receipt of income, but at the same time, allowing monetary transactions over the Internet to gain greater territory. In this regard, the program of Banking of Opportunities stands out, there was greater use of financial products, especially digital ones, which went from 66 to 75.5%, a jump of 9.5 percentage points.
Accordingly, the Colombian Chamber of Electronic Commerce indicated that this year alone sales grew by 2.74% in an average monthly rate, exceeding the already high levels recorded during the pandemic and that at the time came to place Colombia at the top of a list in which countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, are also listed.
With these indicators in hand, the way is opened to the arguments announced at the time by Bancolombia indicating the presence of new consumer habits, as consumers continue to spend more time at home, make their purchases from a computer and as a consequence they use their debit cards, wallets more electronic and credit cards to pay.
With this, and considering a study carried out by the payment subsidiary Minsaint Payments, not only can we conclude that around 61% of the Colombian population has reduced the use of cash at the time of payment, but that this trend will continue as 8 out of 10 Colombians, according to the Colombian Chamber of Electronic Commerce will continue to make their purchases online and apparently, they will not pay again with banknotes and coins; as they did before.
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