Luis Espínola: Technology will be main driver for Dominican Republic banking

Transcript

Banking in the Dominican Republic is a burgeoning and diverse sector – with technological innovation leading changes in the industry, and new financial inclusion initiatives driving growth. Banco Popular’s Luis Espínola talks about the latest trends in the Dominican Republic’s retail and corporate banking sectors.

World Finance: Banking in the Dominican Republic is a burgeoning and diverse sector – with technological innovation leading changes in the industry. 

With me now to speak about how the private equity sector is developing is Luis Espínola, executive vice-president of international business and private banking at Banco Popular Dominicano.

Well Luis, the banking landscape in the Dominican Republic has changed remarkably over the last decade. How does it stand today and how does BPD fit into this?

Luis Espínola: We had a bank crisis in 2003, one bank was liquidated and two more had to be sold since we had a small economy at the time, you know. That had a spill over – if you will – in the economy.

Soon after that, our country recovered extremely well. Our numbers within the Central American and Caribbean region are extraordinary, we are one of the strongest and fast growing economy of the region and Banco Popular plays a major role into that.

We cater to the needs of all banking segments: retail, middle market, corporate, tourism – you name it – we are there. And we’ll continue to strive to have a better understanding of the needs of our customers going forward and to provide those products and services accordingly.

World Finance: Of course technology is drastically impacting banking practices worldwide – how are you responding to this?

Luis Espínola: On all our online banking services to all our retail and private middle market and corporate customers, we offer what we feel is state of the art online banking, as well as new and fast technology at the point of sales: chip-based point of sales now, that can maintain the international standards that our customers are requiring.

Technology is going to be the main driver for the banking system, and for Banco Popular to be able to deliver – going forward – the products and services in a more efficient way. And to that extent we also offer new mobile services, in which we can reach our customers at the cellphone point of sale. And that way, they can do through their cellphones different transactions including: transfers, online payments – real-time online payments. So they can have a small branch at their fingertips.

World Finance: And in terms of cash management – how much importance is placed on this for the economy and what is your approach?

Luis Espínola: Extremely important, for our corporate and middle market customers – and why not – the small businesses; you know, this is important. So we are now providing products and services towards cash management among others.

There are remote cash deposits where customers handle their cash and deposit their cash in a more cost-effective channel with Banco Popular, which saves them roughly 60 percent of transportation cost that they currently incur. 

World Finance: In terms of financial inclusion now and how well covered is the Dominican Republic?

Luis Espínola: We are very excited in the financial inclusion side because there are a lot of initiatives towards continuing to expand financial inclusion.

We have been establishing a new service provider channel, which is the sub-agent bank network, which in our country permits us to partner with all the different town and provinces in the country: pharmacies, supermarkets, and any retail store. We partner with them, they are able to provide our different products and services, and thus they receive not only current but potential customers.

So we are very excited going forward of the penetration. And hopefully, we will be able to increase an important rate of financial inclusion within Banco Popular Dominicano.

World Finance: And how do you target the younger generation demographic?

Luis Espínola: We have different services and products that we provide to our youth, especially with different credit cards and through cards in general. We offer different accounts that cater to their needs. We are very active in Twitter, in Facebook, in Instagram, any social media; you name it, we are there. Trying to not only deliver our message on our products and services but also to try to understand and have our ears to the ground to what, our customers, especially the youth, are looking for.

World Finance: Finally, let’s look at your approach to the corporate sector and what trends are you seeing in this area?

Luis Espínola: As our economy has been opening up through the last few decades, so have our customers been in more contact, and they are now accustomed to other international standards. We have specialised business managers, we work together closely with our corporate customers, we understand their strategic plans. We understand their vision – going forward – and we ensure our capabilities as a banco, as a bank, as a leader bank, as a group within that strategy, to grow together with our customers.