Colombia would reach 2020 with 5 million virtual banking users | Finance | Economy

Colombia will have five million people who will frequently use electronic banking and more than 32 million internet users in 2020, according to a study by BBVA Research that was released Thursday in Bogotá.

"Our estimates are that by 2020 62% of Colombians will have access to the Internet," affirmed the main economist of BBVA Research in Colombia, Alejandro Reyes, during the presentation of the report, where he added that "about 10%" of the citizens of the country "will be a user of electronic banking".

(Digital banking: the era of agile and secure operations).

The Dane reported last July, based on the result of the National Population and Housing Census 2018, that in Colombia there are 48.2 million people.

According to the BBVA study, Colombians use the internet to access social networks and find information. In that sense, The most used networks by Colombians are Facebook and WhatsApp, with more than 18 million users, followed by YouTube (9.9 million), Instagram (7 million) and Twitter (4.1 million).

Similarly, he notes that 3.5 million people are users of mobile banking applications.

The report also showed that the main obstacles for Colombians to integrate into new technologies are related to costs, coverage and ignorance of new advances.

As for coverage, The analysis found that in 2018 households with internet in urban areas totaled 7.6 million people while in rural areas that figure barely exceeded 500,000 people.

"There is still a high inequality in internet access according to income level and location area," added the economist.

BBVA Research also analyzed issues such as financial transactions, the high informality in commerce and the low use of dataphones, which it considers generates less electronic payments.

Likewise, the entity determined that the establishments that use electronic payments the most are hypermarkets, service stations and drug stores, while those that do less are stationery stores, neighborhood markets and restaurants.

On the other hand, if Colombia is compared with other countries in the region such as Mexico and Chile, the country has a download speed and lower internet service quality.

EFE