During the Financial Services Ideation, our team discovered a striking cultural trend. They observed that while over 65% of the Colombian population does not engage with commercial banks, almost all interview participants received informal financial advice and services through trusted people or role models within their social circles.

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Insights from Research

After understanding the role and motivations of informal financial advisors, the team established a business concept anchored on this recurring personality within middle-class communities in Colombia: the community advisor. It became clear that human relationships built upon trust were key to offer tailored financial services for our demographic.

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Our approach

Aflore is a direct sales network for financial services for those neglected the formal banking sector. It recruits trusted advisors within middle-income communities, and mobilizes them with training, digital tools, and the appropriate financial products, loans and insurance, to serve the financial needs of their trusted network.

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Business Model:

Aflore has achieved important milestones and recognition for its business<ul><li>Over 23,000 disbursed loans</li><li>Tech platform with 95% of loan applications through digital channels</li><li>Secured US$10m of debt from Accial Capital in September 2020</li><li>Closed a pre-series B round of US$6.6m in February 2021</li><li>Forbes Top 100 digital startups in Colombia</li><li>Expanded their portfolio to include non-lending products with nationwide partners such as Sura, HDI, and R5.</li><li>Their core team has grown to +100 members</li></ul>

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The Venture Today: 

Aflore aims to become the main financial platform for the emerging middle-class in Latin America. With a growing pool of active financial advisors, an increasingly diversified product portfolio, and rapid adoption of its digital journey, Aflore will scale its model of providing the unbanked and underbanked of the region with financial solutions designed for them.

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What the future holds: 

Want to know more about Aflore?

Ana is co-founder and CEO of Aflore, before joining this project she was most recently Director of “Housing for All” at Ashoka, where she worked with corporations and social entrepreneurs to deliver affordable housing solutions to the “bottom of the pyramid”. Before Ashoka, Ana spent eight years in London working for Lehman Brothers and Nomura, structuring financial products for institutional clients. She started her career in Colombia, trading coffee and managing risk at the Federation of Coffee Growers. She has an MBA from London Business School and a Bs in Business Administration from Universidad de los Andes.

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Co-Founder & CEO - Aflore

Ana Barrera

Manuel was previously Vice President of Banco Falabella Colombia, Head of Sales Channels, where he lead areas including branch networks, remote channels (internet/mobile, contact centers and ATM networks) and customer service. Manuel has more than 12 years of experience in international financial institutions, including roles in Finance, O&amp;T, Business Analysis, Credit Scoring, Product Management, Business Development and Sales and Distribution. He holds an Executive MBA from IE Business School, a BS in Business Administration from UNED, and Computer Science degree form Universidad de Valladolid (Spain).

Co-Founder & COO - Aflore

Manuel Jimenez 

Leadership

As a <a href="https://polymathv.com/venture-studio-model">Venture Studio</a> leveraging the Company Building methodology, our purpose is to build <a href="https://polymathv.com/ventures/">digital platforms</a> to empower the emerging middle-class in Latin America. To do so, we have developed an <a href="https://polymathv.com/process/">entrepreneurial methodology</a> for emerging markets. These markets look very different than hubs like Silicon Valley, so how you design, launch, and fund companies need to look different.Our company building methodology is designed to <a href="https://polymathv.com/about/">build market-transforming business models.</a> It’s about finding a big untapped opportunity and building a 10x better product. Especially to serve the mass demographic in Latin America, it also means business model innovation.<h2>Ideation is where everything starts</h2>To design for people first we must understand them, the ideation phase is precisely for that. Successful company building relies on the right identification of opportunities – check our ideation about <a href="https://polymathv.com/seeds/financial-services/">fintech</a> -. It’s not about what startups get the most funding or the trendiest business model, it’s about solving deeply unmet needs and achieving <a href="https://future.a16z.com/about-product-market-fit/">product-market fit</a> before scaling.Ideation is a collaborative process of discovery and experimentation designed here at <a href="https://polymathv.com/">Polymat</a>h that aims to arrive at 1 validated concept. To do so, <a href="https://polymathv.com/team/">the team</a> focuses on uncovering surprising insights about our target demographic, translating them into 8 to 10 business concepts, and then testing 3 to 4 prototypes.<blockquote>Only by addressing real needs can you expect to create real solutions, and relevant, successful companies.</blockquote>&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:77.99%;"><img src="/uploads/Company_building_a694cd6fcb.png"><figcaption>Company Building Methodology</figcaption></figure><h2>How to get to the concept?</h2><h3>1. Research</h3>As a Venture Studio, we do not take ideas from the outside, meaning ideas developed by entrepreneurs outside our organization. Instead, we start by identifying big opportunities where clients are clearly under-served. Some of our most revisited industries/spaces are; Fintech, Social Commerce, Employment, Mobility, Health, Education.We usually go back to the core issues of the society, for example, the inequality in banking, or the average transportation time in one of our region’s cities vs the global average. Take a look at the “phenomenal” problems of your industry or business, since there will be an opportunity.<h4>Map the space</h4>Start by mapping out what is known about the sector, and begin developing an understanding of the project scope.<ul><li>&nbsp;<ul><li>You can break down a sector by identifying its stakeholders and brainstorming the characteristics and needs of each. Take notes of relationships and tensions and move forward to building your first project statements.</li><li>You can also formulate statements in the form of “How Might We” action statements. For example, “How Might We give informal workers access to financial products”?.</li></ul></li></ul><h4>Interview Guide</h4>A guide of discussion points is an important investigative tool for the team to prepare. This will help the interviewer navigate conversations, and ensure that the right information is captured for the team. After each interview, the perspective of the team will broaden and shift, and it is important that the interview guide be a dynamic document that can be updated as new questions arise.<blockquote>Let them know that you are there for their stories, that they are the experts.</blockquote><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:62.65%;"><img src="/uploads/research_company_building_104750e0cf.jpeg"><figcaption>Research in Company Building&nbsp;</figcaption></figure><h3>2. Synthesis</h3>Once you get to the synthesis phase the team will translate the raw information into understandings and structures to inform new ideas and distill insights. An insight is a rich piece of information that you have learned – something you did not know before. An insight should contain a tension between what should be happening and what is not, illuminating a need.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:61.32%;"><img src="/uploads/Sinthesys_company_building_95d8948e6f.png"><figcaption>Synthesis in Company Building</figcaption></figure><h3>3. Concepting</h3>The act of creating new ideas is uncertain, messy, but definitely exhilarating. Although is a creative process, we like to distill it into three general steps: expansionary thinking, evolutionary thinking, and contractionary thinking.<ul><li>&nbsp;<ul><li>In expansionary thinking, numerous ideas are generated around a question or topic and the goal is to achieve volume. The purpose is to get past the obvious and get into the unexpected.</li><li>Evolutionary thinking is where interesting ideas are developed to deepen their meaning.</li><li>In contractionary thinking, directions are developed further. Your goal will be to evolve the best ideas into strong concepts.</li></ul></li></ul>&nbsp;<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:61.32%;"><img src="/uploads/how_to_create_company_9d158a665b.jpeg"><figcaption>How to create concepts in Company Building?</figcaption></figure><h3>4. Prototyping</h3>In prototyping, one of the final stages of Ideation, we test desirability but also the robustness of the business model. It’s like making tangible hypotheses.To accomplish our goals, we apply a series of learning cycles to establish the evolution rhythm of a concept. We suggest cycles of 1 to 1.5 weeks with 4 to 6 interviews pers cycle. After the interviews, the learnings are synthesized and the prototypes are updated to be tested once again in a new cycle of interviews.We also work on the P&amp;L of the business to estimate the potential EBITDA and understand its value. In this exercise, we include future costs as the support structure that the biz model will need to grow.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:61.75%;"><img src="/uploads/Prototyping_b3c8dc2b88.png"><figcaption>Prototyping in Company Buidling&nbsp;</figcaption></figure><h2>What’s next?</h2>You made it! You got to one concept and now you are ready to move forward. To learn more about the next steps, take a look at our <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfcQE-FWAzFSfoKsvsGB0aCZ1Sa7SQc8E5QJs8uFKMwSbKDVw/viewform?usp=sf%5Flink">Company Building playbook</a>, which includes the detail of all the four phases and practical tools to deploy in your process. In the meantime here are a few tips.<ul><li>Validation: After testing the prototypes, our team focuses on building the MVP and verifying the desirability, feasibility, and viability. The ultimate outcome is to build the value proposition through 2 to 3 MVP cycles.</li><li>PMF: The goal of this stage is to achieve PMF (Product-Market-Fit). To do so we build multiple versions of our product. At this point, we also start recruiting the founding team that will lead the next stage of the business.</li><li>Acceleration: During this stage, the team completes the last iteration of the product and focuses on launching the company and growing through digital marketing, and improving unit economics.</li></ul>

Ideation, the Starting Point for Company Building

In Latin America, almost 40% of the population is considered vulnerable, meaning they are at risk of falling back into poverty, especially during financial shocks. This is a preoccupying situation in the region, as it reflects instability among a large portion of the population.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:63.74%;"><img src="/uploads/Latin_america_Population_c10d794f18.png"><figcaption>Socio-economic group - Latin America</figcaption></figure>In addition to living under financial stress, this demographic lacks what economists call financial capabilities, the knowledge that drives decision-making related to personal finance management. Even though this demographic is able to access the basic needs of shelter, food, and clothing, they aren’t equipped with the skills to maintain and improve upon this lifestyle.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:51.42%;"><img src="/uploads/aflore_d6e764f2f5.png"><figcaption>Aflore</figcaption></figure>Aflore, a fintech company based in Bogota, is leveraging technology and an innovative business model to give the vulnerable and middle-class access to formal financial services. The business model is based on recruiting, training and managing a network of mobile-enabled financial advisors for the middle class. These advisors offer financial services to their trusted networks via Aflore’s app.Today, the main product offered through the network is medium-sized loans ($630 average loan size) that are used for working capital, home improvements and home appliances. Aflore is also offering insurance and eventually plans to offer a full suite of financial products.Through this innovative business model, Aflore is able to offer this demographic formal financial services in a profitable and scalable way. Over the past two years, Aflore has been able to slice its portfolio with an 8% profit margin (compared to the 2.8% margin for comparable institutions) while maintaining a reasonable default rate of 5.7%. The model also allows for extremely efficient operations, with Aflore sporting the highest credit officer productivity in the industry.These results are proof that, with the right business model and technology, this demographic can be served in a profitable and scalable way. Furthermore, the business has a significant social impact. 76% of all advisors are female, and they play a key role in understanding the needs of women in their communities. These advisors become role models in their communities, empowering clients in their network and also receiving training and personal development opportunities in addition to compensation.On the client side, 57% of Alfore’s clients are women, and half of them earn less than 500 dollars a month. Additionally, 4 in 5 of those women do not have education beyond elementary school but represent the main source of income in 75% of the cases.By giving vulnerable demographics access to financial services and know-how, households can not only lift themselves out of a vulnerable situation but can also establish positive relationships with their finances and educate the entire community.Firms in Latin America can offer stability to the region’s population by creating business models that can support the vulnerable class. This notably large demographic is the backbone of future growth in the region, one that combined with the middle class will represent the highest consumption and driver of GDP growth in the region.—Stay tuned! Follow us on <a href="https://medium.com/the-new-alliance">Medium</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/polymath-ventures/">LinkedIn </a>to stay up to date.

Lessons from Aflore, a fintech company bringing formal financial services to vulnerable populations in Latin America

OverviewFinancial inclusion is one of the most pressing and challenging issues to tackle worldwide. Access to financial services reduces inequality gaps by offering both merchants and individuals products to save income, finance consumption and invest in the future.Governments and traditional private institutions have implemented policies and introduced products to the market in an attempt to improve financial inclusion – with largely unsuccessful results.In Latin America, financial inclusion is extremely low for both individuals and small business owners. Only 54% of the adult population has a bank account and 41% have debit cards – In contrast, 94% of adults in high-income countries have an account with a financial institution, with 83% having a debit card.According to The World Bank, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Latin America represent 90% of all firms across the region and employ around 68% of the workforce. However, the financing gap for these enterprises is estimated to be around 250 billion dollars – almost equivalent to Chile’s GDP. This funding gap leaves small merchants with few options to grow and access untapped consumer segments.Fintech in Latin America is improving financial inclusion by building inclusive, consumer-centric products. Significant technology adoption in the region allows fintech companies to leverage technology and data to reach consumers and businesses.This article explores the different factors that make fintech the strongest solution to financial inclusion in Latin America. On the one hand, the lack of incentives for traditional institutions to innovate and engage the unbanked has left huge whitespaces to innovate. On the other hand, improved IT infrastructure and a more flexible regulatory framework are enabling new companies to thrive, leveraging a better understanding of consumer behavior to capture underserved needs.Market dynamics in Latin AmericaThe problem with traditional financial institutionsCommercial banks are the pillar of economic development and financial inclusion in developed countries. They stimulate growth by financing consumption and business expansion and by ensuring consumers against financial shocks.In Latin America, however, commercial banks have failed to stimulate inclusive growth because their business models, which are copycats of developed market banks, do not understand the middle and lower-class demographics and SME’s, and therefore cannot serve them properly.Additionally, the oligopolistic nature of these economies leaves the major banks without much competition (and therefore pressure to innovate). This is proven by the statistics which show that Latin America’s most profitable banks are enjoying a much higher return on assets (ROA) compared to bulge bracket banks in the U.S. or China while failing to achieve financial inclusion.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:64.99%;"><img src="/uploads/ROA_Banks_Lat_Am_0d14cd194e.png"><figcaption>Source: World Bank, Statista, PV analysis</figcaption></figure>In countries like Brazil, the top five banks supply 95% of the market – showing an oligopolistic market structure and a lack of competition.Because of this lack of competition, Latin American banks have dedicated little resources to gather and analyze data to understand their customers better, and have instead focused on products to cover higher income classes. In some instances, they only offer credit cards to users in the top 10% income bracket and disregard the needs of the middle and lower classes, a demographic that makes up 74% of total income and population in Latin America.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:66.46%;"><img src="/uploads/Population_Distribution_Lat_Am_ee19ca4edd.png"><figcaption>Source: World Bank, PV analysis</figcaption></figure>SME’s suffer from similar issues. Large banks in the region are handsomely profiting from serving large corporations and have no need to develop financial products and infrastructure that can stimulate small enterprise growth. Specifically, banks have failed to developed transactions products with a price-point accessible to SMEs or the infrastructure to implement payment processors. In addition, banks have failed to develop credit risk models to serve small companies in a sustainable way and often require large volumes of documentation that significantly increase time-to-market.Consumers and SMEs have turned to the informal market to serve their financial needs.Consumer behavior in Latin AmericaIn addition to the market gaps caused by banks mentioned above, there is also a significant lack of trust from consumers thanks to the many financial shocks and scandals that have happened in Latin America over the last four decades. From periods of severe debt crisis or high currency volatility to money laundering scandals and stock market scams, the region has seen it all – and financial institutions have failed to restore trust.The combination of banks’ shortcomings and a lack of consumer trust have led middle-class consumers and SMEs to prefer the informal market for financial services. Informal loans, for instance, are still commonplace throughout the region – in some cases almost three times as common as formal credit.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/Informalvsformal_loans_Lat_Am_d2f88824af.png"><figcaption>Source: World Bank, PV analysis</figcaption></figure>In Colombia, people create small savings and lending clubs called “Cadenas”, where the aggregated pool of funds rotates amongst a group of friends. In México, these clubs are called “Tandas”, and about 31% of the adult population participate in them.This behavior shows that, although there is little engagement with formal financial institutions, the middle class have a deep need, ability and willingness to pay for financial services. The informal market survives on trust and open communication channels in a close, familiar network. It’s a system that consumers understand and can rely on.The system also gives the population access to a lump sum of money that is otherwise inaccessible and offers an “alternative” savings plan for those who can’t afford banks’ costly administration fees.In Colombia, 85% of commercial transactions are done in cash due to SME’s low adoption of electronic payments. As a result of not keeping track of commercial transactions electronically, SMEs often have to optimize their inventory manually, keep track of their sales ad-hoc and pay large fees to access credit from informal lenders who don’t require collateral proof.The problem with these informal markets is that they do not provide long-term solutions. In lending, for example, they provide short-term emergency loans but are unable to give access to the long-term, larger loans that help people build assets.By understanding how consumers behave in informal markets, fintech businesses can understand the core needs and motivations of the unbanked and develop products to serve those needs.The enablersTechnology adoption in Latin AmericaLatin Americans are now more connected. With a smartphone penetration nearing 71% (at parity with China and the U.S.), Latin Americans are more informed and are putting more emphasis on the convenience of hand-held devices to manage their lives.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/Mobile_penetration_Lat_Am_5239cb2261.png"><figcaption>Source: Statista, ECLAC, Bloomberg, PV analysis</figcaption></figure>Fintech companies are leveraging the use of smartphones to access customers efficiently, create a strong user experience and gather better data. Click-through rates, time spent in-app or in-product, adoption of loyalty programs or real-time surveying are some of the metrics that companies are using to add value.Fintech companies are learning about consumers’ deep financial values. This constant feedback loop is a key differentiator and is positioning these companies as reliable “financial companions”.Pro-fintech regulatory reform in Brazil, Mexico, and ColombiaRegulators in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia are pushing fintech growth, implementing a series of open-banking initiatives as the foundation. All three countries have established Fintech Associations that communicate with regulators and have developed structured and controlled environments where fintech companies can test their products in real time.Main regulatory concepts:Fintech Sandbox: a framework put in place by a financial industry regulator that allows fintech companies to live test their product in a small-scale, controlled environment supervised by the regulator. The main goal of this framework is to test the viability of innovation while maintaining customer security and control.This initiative has many advantages. It reduces time-to-market, limits cost, helps regulators and fintech companies identify potential security issues before they become threatening and allows both parties to develop a cooperative environment better suited to support future innovation.Open-banking policy: a policy that facilitates the exchange of consumer data via shared API’s. This policy allows financial institutions to better keep up with consumer demand data being collected by fintech companies. In turn, fintech companies have access to historical consumer data and can make better decisions when building new business models.In the end, this is great news for both fintech companies and consumers, who greatly benefit from the new products being continuously launched.In future articles, we will specifically explore how different regulatory concepts and policies are being implemented in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.The opportunityFintech adoption and investment growthMarket dynamics, increasing technology adoption, and regulatory reform create significant white spaces for fintech companies.Fintech companies are already taking advantage of these white spaces and gaining consumers’ trust. According to the Fintech Adoption Index published by Ernst and Young, Brazil and Mexico have a 40% and 36% average adoption rate for fintech products in 2017, above the 33% world average.Brazil showed the highest adoption rates for any country in Latin America for Payments, Lending and Enterprise Financial Management, ranking amongst the highest in the world.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:68.57%;"><img src="/uploads/Fintech_Adoption_Brazil_5c898ddbb1.png"><figcaption>Source: EY’s Fintech Adoption Index</figcaption></figure>International investors are starting to recognize the opportunity in the region. Since 2013, the number of international investors committing capital to Latin American startups has more than doubled. In 2017, 25 of the most renowned international venture capital firms made their debut investments, including Softbank and TPG’s Rise Fund. Some notable fintech investments include Tencent’s $180 million investment in Nubank and Softbank’s $100 million investment in Clip earlier this year.The fintech industry currently hosts 1,166 startups across eleven segments. From a transactional point of view, Payments and Remittances lead the fintech ranks in Latin America, with over $90.5 million worth of transactions across 285 different startups in 2018. Lending services and Enterprise Financial Management take the second and third spots, with 181 and 90 startups seeking to disrupt each segment respectively.Net Growth in the number of new fintech startups in 2018<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:61.84%;"><img src="/uploads/Fintech_activity_lat_Am_a4d348ee0b.png"><figcaption>Source Finnovista</figcaption></figure>Fintech investment in the region grew by 66% to $337 million in 2018. Furthermore, the average investment ticket size bumped up 180% from $3.4 million to $9.6 million between 2017 and 2018 – a sign of increased market maturity.At the moment, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia are the most active countries in Latin America, hosting almost 70% of all fintech startups in the region.<figure class="image"><img src="/uploads/Fintech-activity-latAm.png" alt=""></figure>A scalable ecosystemSimilar market dynamics across Latin America, low cultural barriers and improving regulation are a recipe for high scalability across the region.In terms of market dynamics, there are uniform socioeconomic structures and high mobile penetration levels across all countries. Financial inclusion is low across Latin America, with banks lacking the incentives to tackle the underserved and informal markets dominating.Cultural barriers of communication, mindset, and behaviors between countries are very low. Aside from Brazil, there is a common language. This allows fintech companies to build local products that are relevant to most consumers in the region.Finally, although regulation is still a barrier, every major country in Latin America has established Fintech Associations that compile information on consumer dynamics, regulatory updates and have open communication channels internationally. This cross-border flow of information allows fintech companies to understand business dynamics and regulatory differences in other countries even before they enter a new market.This combination of similar market dynamics, low cultural barriers and improving regulation provide fintech companies with a unique opportunity to build highly scalable regional businesses.—Stay tuned! In our next article, we will explore the key fintech sub-sectors in more detail and show case studies of how specific startups are disrupting these spaces. Follow us on <a href="https://medium.com/the-new-alliance">Medium</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/polymath-ventures/">LinkedIn </a>to stay up to date.

25K

Independent Advisors

$17M+

USD Disbursed

$10.9M

USD Capital Raised