On September 30, the Colombian Financial Superintendency (SFC, for its acronym in Spanish) held a Citizens’ Public Accountability Hearing covering the August 2018-July 2019 period. Attended by trade associations and supervised entities, the meeting was hosted by Financial Superintendent Jorge Castaño Gutiérrez, whose presentation covered the entity’s objectives for next year. “The business is being transformed naturally and the concept we had of the financial system is also changing, as this is no longer an office issue, or an issue of physical security. Mobile banking, internet and dataphones are key factors as they are the channel used. (This) requires us to think differently,” said Castaño. 

According to the Superintendent, mobile channel participation was 42%, internet 21% and ATMs 11%. In addition, the channels reporting the highest growth were mobile (147%), banking correspondents (24%) and dataphones (22%). During his presentation, the official added that the main challenge for SFC is to continue breaking down barriers to innovation and to motivate the paradigm shift when exercising supervision.

As for supervising of financial conglomerates, Castaño highlighted that SFC emitted reports and regulations about the accreditation of foreign jurisdiction equivalence, the adequate level of capital and the risk management framework of financial conglomerates. Along these lines, the entity has proposed to transform the functional scheme and develop new supervision guides and methodologies. In the future, the SFC intends to sign memorandums of understanding with foreign authorities and create Colleges of Supervisors for Financial Conglomerates.

Josué Bernal, SFC Financial Sub-Director, explained that their current budget is 223,000,000,000 Colombian pesos (more than USD 64 million), of which 19,400,000,000 (close to USD 5.6 million) are earmarked for investment projects, especially in technology, an area for which 84% of the total investment programmed is destined. José Humberto Vélez, SFC Technology Director said that the entity is working developing the SFC’s electronic headquarters, and innovation and business architecture.