ADL

The growth trend of fintech companies at a global level is a reality, so much so Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv and other parts of Europe and Asia have marked part of a relevant path to follow to guarantee growth based on these trends.

In Latin America the reality is no different, since these initiatives are being promoted thanks to the needs of users. According to the report presented by Finavista in May 2020, Colombia remains in third place in Latin America of 200 fintech companies, after Brazil and Mexico. Within this growth, non-financial actors participate who begin to propose really interesting solutions for the end user, unlike traditional financial institutions that did not have the objective of working towards the expectations of the end user and the generation of solutions that include a good experience for the same. These financial startups brought a new perspective to the sector, making them become a great complement to banking, and thus could generate value for the end user; showing them to the entities that digital transformation is a challenge that today must take on. Some of these companies have already started taking big steps thanks to the global vision of ADL Digital Lab, a technology company inspired by fintech efficiency that was born to develop innovative products and digitize processes.

ADL seeks a comprehensive transformation of the transactional ecosystem to position itself as a conducive scenario for co-creation with other companies, involving entrepreneurs, startups, fintech, government and universities. A great dream that began with an idea by Ana Margarita Albir: to create a digital laboratory where

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solutions to empower the Colombian consumer would be developed, maximizing efforts by integrating different actors that would enhance financial capabilities and that began with 5 more people.

The multiple solutions that were being presented from the fintech category and the understanding that the Colombian had changed, prompted the creation of Grupo Aval’s first fintech: Aval Soluciones Digitales (ASD), which was born as a Specialized Company in Electronic Deposits and Payments ( SEDPE) and as an inclusive financial company that understands and responds to the needs and socioeconomic context that Colombians face.

ASD, together with ADL’s strategic guidance, high-level standards and the use of new technologies and methodologies, developed its first product dale!, A digital platform that is constantly evolving reducing the use of cash and that allows Colombians to have at hand a tool where they can manage their money with total control, security and confidence.

This platform is available for all Colombian people over 18 years of age, natural and legal, banked and unbanked, can open their deposit in a matter of minutes, load their account easily and spend, pay and receive money by just writing their cell phone number or email.

Ana Margarita identified the work fronts, methodologies and capacities that have allowed the success of Fintechs and built ADL, developing a vision that consolidates work fronts

from a strategic leadership focused on guiding and proposing digital routes that respond to the needs of the business client, executing digitalization, innovation and advanced analytics projects.

In this way, ADL focused its efforts on technologically transforming Grupo Aval’s financial institutions and rethinking the traditional banking models, forming a team of experts in digital capabilities such as: Strategy, Agility, UX / UI Design, Software Architecture and DevOps and Advanced Analytics. An integration that allowed the arrival of two projects: “Request

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for Occiauto Vehicle Credit” from Banco de Occidente and “Request for Libranza” from Banco Popular, which sought to provide the client with a 100% digital experience of the process.

Thus, and with the accelerated growth of the company, the entrance to new projects was opened for which a new expert team in Digital Marketing was enabled, turning ADL into an entity that encourages users to use the products developed and that inspires more companies to be part of this epicenter of digital transformation, shaping a unique transversal laboratory in Latin America.

In 2019, the Advanced Analytics area implemented its Center of Excellence (COE) that was created with the aim of leading, structuring and monitoring analytics projects of the companies ADL works with, making the company opened an ecosystem that same year to start managing entities other than those of Grupo Aval, this being an important step for Colombia with the development of a comprehensive fintech ecosystem.

Along the way, ADL has managed to consolidate a dynamic that makes it easier for entities to acquire knowledge and execute processes to succeed in the new financial environment, in this way it has been working on 46 projects that allow redesigning the customer experience from digitization, models of analytics and banking portals.

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These are some of the products that have been digitized and which, the scope that can be had with a fintech attitude is highlighted:

Occiauto Vehicle Credit Application, from Banco de Occidente, was one of the first success stories in which new technologies were applied to financial services with the challenge of getting interested users In a Vehicle Credit, they would get a response in minutes to their request for online approval, instead of 3 days and without the need to present documents or carry out more procedures. This not only achieved agility in the application process, but there was also a reduction in time in the areas of operations involved in the process.

ADL also worked together with Banco Popular, digitizing Libranza product to offer an agile and efficient operation, approaching the ofer in a self-assisted way or with personalized guidance in branches, optimizing the Libranzas Credit

process and improving sensitive aspects that clients perceive with value generators for them. The disbursement went from being granted in 8 days to being granted in less than 24 hours and it brought benefits such as the use of the solution on mobile device, easier authentication without physical documents.

Another case of success was Fidubogota, with which ADL managed to establish a secure contact between the entity and the users, with the creation of a collective investment fund, granting their access through Virtual Banking and making the users able to do this process in just 45 seconds from anywhere, paperless and just 3 clicks. With this, it was also possible to offer an investment alternative to Banco de Bogotá’s clients through a Collective Investment Fund of Fiduciaria Bogotá for the fulfillment of dreams and goals.

ADL has also deployed several analytical models that capitalized on the customer’s understanding to offer a better experience, such as the creation of a Credit Card Fraud predictive model for Banco de Bogotá, a product that guarantees the detection of identity theft fraud without affecting the experience of the client in the flow of digital origination of the Banco de Bogotá Credit Card and that allowed to detect the probability of impersonation in digital requests for Credit Cards of clients with a high probability of being victims of fraud.

Another relevant case was the creation of a churn model for Credivillas and Porvenir, which, in order to strengthen retention and user experience, a product was created for AV Villas that improved the Free Investment Credit indicators and in this way, it was designed and developed an analytical tool and commercial strategy focused on optimizing retention and loyalty campaigns. In the case of Porvenir, those clients who are more likely to change their retirement funds pensions were identified and some of the retention strategies were implemented, such as discounts at the National Theater, informative pieces and the ADEN course, helping to improve the retention of customers.

ADL also worked in the banking portals, renewing Personal Banking for the 4 Grupo Aval banks and of which 3 were created from the beginning in ADL and deployed in just 4 months; thus covering 100% of the digital life cycle of users and generating more frequent enabled transactions such as inquiries, login, payments and transfers.

ADL Digital Lab Starts a new phase seeking to involve other actors outside of the Aval ecosystem, thus ensuring that fintech companies continue to be part of the different spaces for knowledge synergies and in this way, job opportunities can be enabled on the whole.

During these 2 years, several projects from different entities have arrived together with their collaborators to establish themselves in ADL, which has allowed the consolidation of a high-level knowledge space, where Colombian talent obtains comprehensive learning by participating in the creation of innovative solutions for digital platforms that complement banking and other verticals. Thus, a culture was generated whose main axis is transversal knowledge, and an academic sense called ADL Academy, a space that capitalizes on the connection between different actors of the ADL ecosystem with external actors and that, at the same time, inspires from their capacities and talents, generating qualified innovation.

Within those moments of connection with actors outside the ADL ecosystem, ADL Hemisphere was enabled, a format designed in 2 phases, that of knowledge synergy and the identification of possible co-creations that during these 2 years have allowed startups, fintech, government and universities to participate in the laboratory to present how they have solved the needs of consumers and what have been the implications that this has brought from the use of new technologies so that they will finally become success stories and know the challenges that they await you. These spaces have as spectators all the entities that have projects in ADL, which has allowed the identification of possible opportunities to enable synergies, since to date more than 24 companies among which are Fitpal, Alpina, U. Politécnico Grancolombiano, Innpulsa, Merqueo, have already visited ADL and thanks to these learnings, the second phase of product development can be activated showing a possible scenario to work together with companies and identify a great potential for synergy to offer better services to Colombians.

ADL wants to continue promoting the digital transformation of companies, therefore, it has expanded its services for those entities that want to take advantage of the laboratory’s skills.

They only have to identify which of the following 9 service fronts can fit their needs and be able at the same time to capitalize on all the learning, experience, knowledge, commitment, technical capacity and innovation, which during this time ADL has consolidated to make Colombia a relevant player in Latin America.

These are the 9 services it offers ADL Digital Lab:

Digitization: as an end-to-end digital transformation of existing products that renew user experiences through an agile way of working that delivers and evolves products and services. It is a process that involves issues of strategy, agility, design, architecture and DevOps.

Transformation of the technological stack: consists of the modernization of the technological stack to make it more efficient and scalable.

Disruptive innovation: focused on generating new business models, innovative products or services that are committed to building a robust digital ecosystem.

Analytics: with which a data strategy aligned to the business vision is developed, generating sustainable competitive advantages in the time.

Agility: focused on supporting the development of agile skills, abilities and knowledge. Design: support in the design and development stages of services and / or products focused on user experience aligned with business needs.

Cloud Services: acceleration of the use and adoption of the cloud, generating value for customers through the use of world-class frameworks in strategies and use of Cloud, DevOps and SRE components.

Digital Marketing: provides support in the construction of capacities and skills necessary to execute digital marketing strategies focused on performance.

Transversal Services: consists of the enabling of shared services, availability of common APIs and with business logic, as well as web / mobile capabilities that solve business functionalities and that are integrated into digital platforms.

It is now 2020 and ADL Digital Lab has managed in 2 years to transform the way of doing things and continues with the firm intention of taking Colombia to a stage with greater prominence, contributing to this fintech revolution where innovation is an essential part of its DNA and technology will always be a participant by accompanying to a large extent the management of its value chain.

ADL has positioned itself as a new technological partner that helps entities to be more agile by guiding digitization and to be more efficient in real time, thus simplifying processes for users, generating value for Colombians and bringing a new thinking model to the different companies that today put their trust in this laboratory where the organizational culture and product processes are constantly feeding back, strengthening capacities, promoting a better experience to the end user and making each project a case of success.

Undoubtedly, the fintech essence of ADL is impregnated with challenges that have been overcome that open the immense possibility of working together with entities that are outside the Grupo Aval ecosystem and in which the protagonists will always be products with a large dose of digital innovation that will continue to offer value to the consumer and made by that great talent of the Colombian label, the ADL Digital Lab label.