Latinia looking at Argentina, Colombia as new steps - Regional
Latinia looking at Argentina, Colombia as new steps - Regional
Sunday, July 6, 2008
(BNamericas.com) - Spanish SMS platform supplier Latinia is looking at Argentina and Colombia to boost its growing Latin American business platform, the company's Latin America director Francesc Pérez told BNamericas.
"We are being proactive, first with prospection trips and seeking out local partners and then opening commercial branches," he said.
The company recently opened a representation office in Mexico and plans to move immediately to Chile after consolidating operations there in 4Q08, he said.
"Prospection studies we carried out in late 2007 confirmed what our marketing specialists already told us, which is that Chile should be one of our main expansion goals given its extraordinary 90% cell phone penetration ratio," he said.
A 2007 study by Latinia showed 38 of Latin America's largest 100 banks now offer services accessible via mobile phones, with the exchange of SMS being the preferred method of mobile banking.
Chile ranked at the top of the study, with 55% of local banks offering m-banking services to their customers.
Pérez said the SMS technology in Chile and the other aforementioned Latin American countries is already mature or is fast-developing, with high cultural affinity factors also helping Latinia's plans.
There is still room to keep developing m-banking in Latin America and banks should take their cue from the fact that mobile phone penetration in the region is higher than the internet's, he said.
Also, a number of connectivity and infrastructure issues that hindered m-banking development in the region some years ago no longer exist, according to Pérez....
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