New Colombian Digital Bank “Iris” Seeks To Enable Business Clients With Technology

Yesterday, the all-Colombian “neobank” called IRIS launched publicly, seeking to “transform the way of serving the business segment, leaving behind handling fees and complex processes, and implementing real and measurable solutions such as month-to-month cost reduction” in banking fees.

IRIS by Financiera Dann Regional calls itself the first neobank focused on the corporate and business sector born in Colombia. On June 2 of this year, the Financial Superintendence of Colombia granted the new bank authorization to operate in the digital banking sector with the approval of the savings section and its regulations.

“Colombian entrepreneurs are always open to innovations and with the pandemic it has become more urgent to optimize time and improve profitability, therefore, we speak of agility and transparency. Definitely, we are the new generation of financial entities with 100% digital, secure and fast transactions, aspects that millions of Colombians know in their personal accounts, but that did not exist in the business segment. That is why we created IRIS, a brand with products and innovative services,” says the new CEO, banking industry veteran Lorenzo Garavito.

With its irreverent advertising and its differential logo, the neobank wants to communicate that through its products, companies, regardless of their size, have control, monitoring and accompaniment. The first product of the neobank is a 100% digital business savings account, created after a detailed and rigorous market research process that Garavito says included listening carefully over several months to understand the unmet needs of Colombian entrepreneurs and finding a way to solve them, having always the user experience as the center of the strategy.

Free transactions, interest bearing account, and no maintenance fee

“IRIS was born taking care of our clients’ time, which is a vital resource; that is why we say that one of our differentiators is the agility to improve the user experience. For example, the processing of the application for the business savings account, from start to finish, takes only 5 minutes on the platform and the approval takes a maximum of 24 hours. Once operational, the businessperson or entrepreneur can monitor in real time to make timely decisions, manage permissions of financial operations according to employee profiles and access all kinds of graphs and summary information that streamlines administrative, financial and analytical processes,” adds Garavito.

One of the great attractions of the IRIS savings account is the free interbank transactions depending on the balance that the company manages. For example: Every account receives 50 free transactions, with a balance up to $50 million the number rises to 100, with $250 million it receives 200 transactions and an average balance of $500 million gets 500 free transactions.

As a technology focused online bank, IRIS abandons the traditional model of retail offices, long lines and cash management needs. This policy of innovation aligns with next-generation businesses that operate with online and cashless market strategies.

“As the months go by, we will be sharing new services connected to the savings account and other products that will be part of our extensive 100% digital portfolio that, of course, will also have payment solutions, financing, digital cards, among others, all to facilitate the control of expenses,” explained Garavito.

According to projections, IRIS expects to gain 6,000 business customers and carry out operations in excess of $80 billion pesos during the first year of operations.

“Being the first neobank created by and for entrepreneurs, we interviewed managers, executives, administrative heads, payroll managers, among others because we wanted to get to know their day-to-day life closely. Then we began to design solutions and in the implementation process we carried out tests to guarantee the adequate performance of IRIS, assuring Colombian companies and businesses a new experience in financial services,” said Garavito.

IRIS was financed and structured through Financiera Dann Regional Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. which has nearly 25 years of experience in various sectors such as construction, infrastructure, telecommunications, commerce and education.