The technological advances go at a speed of vertigo and do not cease to amaze us. In several Houston airport restaurants, for example, cash, paper, data sets, tableware and several employees were replaced by mini screens where you choose the menu, order the order and pay the bill charged to your card number of credit. The receipt or invoice arrives online to the mail. The same is happening in supermarkets in the United States and Europe.
Past vs present
Air tickets and Check-in processes on airline counters became a thing of the past. With the arrival of these technologies today we can make a reservation, buy an e-ticket and obtain the mobile boarding pass online from our cell phone, and have a last model car (Uber) waiting for us at the airport without having to make long lines to take a taxi. Not to mention the ease and economy, when we booked a room or apartment through airbnb or similar platforms.
In the same way it has happened with other sectors of the industry, services and commerce, which have had to change their traditional business models, thanks to the advent of the technological and digital internet universe. The film and television industry is another one since Netflix appeared; musical houses operate differently since Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer; the banks were shaken by the appearance of Fintech and the businesses of the agricultural sector had to ride on the highway of competitive satellite technology. That is, we move from the internet of information to the internet of added value.
AI, on point
The use of artificial intelligence in banks is also surprising the financial world. Until a couple of years ago, Fintech were seen by banks as a very strong threat or competitor. In fact, David Vélez, a creator of Nubank, the largest digital bank in Latin America, with six years of life and valued at US $ 4 billion (4 times larger than Rappi), managed to scare them.
The end of paper: the end of trad banks?
There was talk of an apocalyptic end for the banks, thinking that they could end up as paperwork and paperwork operators, but the advances show that the Fintech ended up being their best allies to lower operating costs, response times and greater user coverage. Such is the case of the Fintech Credifomento, a technological platform that allows banks to evaluate the risks of agricultural loans and producers of the field to structure the technical and financial viability of a productive project in 18 minutes, without displacements or cumbersome procedures. This venture has just won the Future Agro Challenge Colombia, and will represent the country in the Global Agripreneurs Summit, next September in Greece.
As Belgian Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine says, “The future can not be predicted, but it can be designed”. If we want to be part of our destiny, we have to start building it.