Puerto Rico-based EVERTEC opens branch in Colombia
EVERTEC is headquartered in Cupey.
EVERTEC, a company with more than 25 years experience and considered the leading full-service transaction processing business in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced it is establishing operations in Colombia this month.
Internationally, EVERTEC provides a variety of services, including merchant acquiring, payment processing and business process management in 19 countries in the region. Currently, EVERTEC processes more than 1,800 million transactions each year and operates a network of over 4,100 ATMs and 104,000 POS terminals. The company also offers core bank processing and technology outsourcing for the financial sector and other industries.
The strategy behind opening the first EVERTEC branch in Colombia is to make its value proposition available for Colombian companies, focusing on financial institutions with great growth potential, such as new banking institutions, and small organizations like saving and loans banks, specialized financial institutions and credit unions, company officials said.
“EVERTEC sees a great value in establishing operations in Colombia, because this is a fast growing payments market. We are hopeful that our arrival to the Colombian market also represents a great opportunity for local companies, because we can provide them technological solutions that will contribute to the growth of the country,” EVERTEC CEO Peter Harrington said.
The availability of EVERTEC’s services for the Colombian market will be gradual. In the first phase, EVERTEC plans to offer the following services: Financial transactions processing: ATM, POS, kiosks, phone payments, electronic payments and ach; debit and credit card processing; development and implementation of financial applications; solutions for government benefits payments; merchant acquiring transactions (coming soon); infrastructure, information systems and network management, and cloud solutions; human resources management solutions; and outsourcing of operational processes, networks solutions, business continuity and back up.
Colombia as LatAm hub
In addition to positioning EVERTEC as a strategic ally for Colombian financial institutions, the company also plans to transform its Colombian operations into a hub that facilitates the expansion of its services to other South American countries, company officials said.
EVERTEC considers Colombia a region with a high potential due to the economic stability that various countries in the region are experiencing and also because it is the second geographic region with the highest rate of conversion for paper to electronic transactions.
According to Gartner from 2013 to 2015 the electronic transactions in the region are projected to duplicate and forecasts are that the banking sector as investing close to $30 billion in technology per year.
“We want financial institutions and merchants in the region to see EVERTEC as the best ally for their businesses; the ally that can provide them the technological solutions and services they need in order to accelerate their growth in the upcoming years,” Harrington said.
