Customer experience and operational efficiency were boosted through mobile apps, AI chatbots, and real-time data dashboards. Global Finance announces the 2025 Innovators from Latin America.
Regional Winner
Most Innovative Bank in Latin America| BANCO BRADESCO
Banco Bradesco has incorporated innovative Gen AI applications into its operations to modernize services and processes. By using AI to extract and quantify information from investment reports, the bank can tailor analyses to meet the needs of institutional clients.
The Bridge platform integrates services to optimize banking applications from different business areas, eliminating the need for subject-matter expertise. The IdeIA solution reads customer-service emails and automates previously manual processes to respond quicker to customers. By simplifying processes, the bank is able to improve the user experience for its customers. Horizon uses customer data to generate commercial insights to better understand customer needs and behaviors; thus, it can simplify decisionmaking. Athena solves the problem of manually documenting calls and chats by using AI to transcribe and compile these. These are only a few of the innovations within the bank that have improved efficiency and saved time.
Innovations In Finance Globally From Latin America
Best-in-Class Payroll Onboarding Process| BANAMEX
To eliminate manual tasks, data errors, and cumbersome processes, Banamex introduced Remote Account Opening Payroll, which connects employees with their employers through a fully digital self-service onboarding process. Employers can onboard employees for payment processes through the e-banking portal, which saves time by digitizing the interaction between employees and their employer’s new human resources department. Employees no longer need to provide personal information and bank account numbers to their employers by email or paper. Instead, they can open a Banamex account that has features similar to a checking account and securely validate their identity using biometrics.
Analysis of Accounting Statements| BANCO CENTRAL DO BRASIL
Every year, the financial institutions supervised by Brazil’s central bank issue accounting reports that are used to verify their compliance with regulations. These reports are not standardized and extracting the relevant information can take weeks and many employee hours. The central bank’s new internal tool uses a large language model and AI to simultaneously analyze some 1,800 accounting statements in approximately 20 minutes to determine whether the supervised entities are in compliance. The tool is calibrated to eliminate bias so that the extracted information yields more accurate results.
Cuscatlan New App| BANCO CUSCATLAN
Customers using the Cuscatlan New App can customize their home screens to view particular products and services. Thanks to enhanced security and privacy settings, they can also specify which accounts and balances they want displayed on their home screen and easily access key functions like cardless cash withdrawal with only a few clicks, making the new app more intuitive than competitors’. It also addresses customers’ pain points and cumbersome processes to streamline how they can access products and services through a more intuitive, personalized banking experience, the banks says.
SAM (Servicio de Atencion Movil)| BANCO DEL PAIS (BANPAIS)
To promote financial inclusion in Honduras, Banco del País introduced SAM, an AI-powered chatbot providing a more personalized and interactive means for clients to self-service their routine banking needs. This virtual assistant is a customer’s first point of contact and addresses questions over social media. Customers can access SAM 24/7 from WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger along with other in-country social platforms to perform such operations as transaction inquiries, credit card balance checks and activation, and safety blocks and answer more than 80 frequently asked questions.
ARI – Generative AI to Support Micro and Small Businesses| BANCO DO BRASIL
Aiming to better understand the needs of entrepreneurs and the opportunities they seek, Banco do Brasil launched ARI, an AI-driven alternative to conventional banking consultancy models. The technology uses a generative AI conversation assistant in Microsoft Teams, analyzing raw financial data to produce personalized insights for Brazilian micro and small businesses. ARI simplifies complex financial processes for entrepreneurs, saving them time and resources, and generates insights into customer behavior and performance and growth opportunities, enabling entrepreneurs to make better informed strategic decisions.
Rural Banking| BANCOLOMBIA
Bancolombia is addressing financial inclusion in rural communities with a territory-based intervention model rather than a product-centric approach. Using localized financial solutions, technology-enabled access, a financial literacy program, a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem, and networks that empower women, the bank has simplified financial processes and improved accessibility to foster sustainable economic development. Multiple areas of the bank are collaborating to solve the problem of financial inclusion, including a Rural Innovation Lab that identifies systemic challenges, experiments with new financial solutions, and codesigns interventions with local communities. The bank is also working with the Bancolombia Foundation to incubate and scale social impact projects.
Automation| BANCO W
App Abogados W leverages low-code and no-code technology to improve debt collection for the customer, resulting in a 94% increase in operational efficiency for Colombia’s Banco W. Developed by the bank’s WLab in partnership with Universidad Icesi, the app has reduced payment agreement processing time from 15 days to less than 24 hours; with improved customer experience, this has netted the bank a 400% increase in agreements. By reducing costs, the app has allowed Banco W to reallocate resources to other strategic tasks.
Improvements in the Negotiation of Early Credit Card Delinquencies in Collection Telephone Calls| BBVA
BBVA is transforming its debt collection process by applying insights from behavioral economics to collection calls for early credit card defaults. The change addresses customers’ emotional and cognitive barriers when dealing with debt and relies on customer responses to legal and financial incentives. The new approach helps the bank make interventions at an early stage of delinquency, helping prevent debt loads from becoming unmanageable. Advisors guide conversations with negotiation accelerator cards based on behavioral economics and tailored to the individual customer’s psychology. The result has been an increase in recovered balances and customers getting better control of their finances.
BTG AI Banker Agent| BTG PACTUAL
BTG AI Banker Agent gives individuals access to a private banker for their customer service, personal finance management, and investment advisory needs. Utilizing generative AI and deep learning models, this tool includes a daily banker that acts as a personal financial assistant; a foundational customer model that leverages transactional data, behavioral insight, and risk profiles; a research assistant that analyzes the customer’s assets, macroeconomics, and financial news; a customer service assistant; and an investment advisor that recommends optimized investment portfolios to help customers meet their goals.
