From the ‘collector’ to formal credit: the strategy to give liquidity to the informal seller | Good news day

In Barranquilla, the ´’cobradiario ‘are a phenomenon that grows drop by drop.

With its loan facilities and high interest rates , turned the need for the informal worker into a demand for double standards that even involved criminal gangs.

Santiago Botero is an entrepreneur who wanted to bet on creating a financial company that will dedicate itself to providing access to credit both those who did not belong to the traditional banking sector, as those reported in Datacrédito, that they were in need of second chances. His work became the counterweight to a social problem that the State has had no intervention.

“The ´pagadiario is a cancer, and it is that today it gives you one hundred thousand pesos; Tomorrow he gives you another hundred thousand pesos, because you need them. So you go on paying, but you, one month you had money to spare and you want to pay fifty thousand pesos and he tells you: “No, either you pay me the two hundred thousand pesos or you can’t pay me”. That’s where we come in, we want to be part of that solution. I don’t have all the money in the world to lend to all the people I want, but I’m going to put my grain of sand in the equation ”, he explains.

He recognizes that his clientele has their particular characteristics: “you will not imagine the profile of these people. They are poor pay, they are reported people, there is everything. I want to be a person who gives second chances, “he says.

But warn that the key is in the financial education . In not only lending for lending, but in reaching out to teach communities how to manage money.

“Yor I lend you money for a car, if you don’t pay for the car, you have to go out to take a bus or taxi, then it is not that he takes away the expense. I tell him: “decide what you want to do. If you want to ride a car, pay me. And if you don’t go by bus, but it will cost you the same money ”, he assures as if he were explaining the dynamics to one of his clients.

Santiago’s bet was the object of attention of foreign investors, who recently bought part of the shares of this company with which it provides loans to communities with economic vulnerabilities. He says it’s a bet on the people.

“This person that you see here wants to invite businessmen, entrepreneurs, investors. We have the most important raw material in a country, which is the people. We have first class people”, He says.

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