SANTO DOMINGO – The Dominican Republic has built a solid foundation for the digital transformation of finance, with sustained progress in digital banking, contactless payments, electronic wallets, and new intermediation solutions that strengthen the user experience and expand access to financial products and services, reflecting the level of maturity achieved by the Dominican banking system, agreed representatives of Visa, Mastercard, and CardNET in the country.
The executives participated in the panel "The future of banking in Latin America: from innovation to new business models", held during the XIX International Congress of Finance and Auditing (CIFA) and the XXIV Latin American Seminar of Accountants and Auditors (SELATCA), organized by the Association of Multiple Banks of the Dominican Republic (ABA) and BDO Business School.
As evidence of this evolution, Gustavo Turquía, Visa's country manager; Tomás Alonso, Mastercard's country manager; and Luis Bencosme, president of the CardNET Council, highlighted that nearly 90% of card transactions are now carried out using contactless technology, around 83% of banking operations are conducted through digital channels, and a similar proportion of financial institutions offer mobile applications or heavily used web platforms.
They also noted that over the past two years, users have opened approximately 1.5 million financial products, including accounts and loans, entirely digitally, reflecting the growing public confidence in electronic channels.
In this regard, Luis Bencosme attributed these advances to investments made by financial institutions and the evolution of the regulatory framework. As an example of the change in users' relationship with banks, he cited data from the Superintendency of Banks' Digitalization Ranking, according to which 16% of adults with financial services report never having visited a bank branch.
"These indicators show the commitment of financial institutions to offer a user experience that generates trust and usability of the applications," said Bencosme.
For Tomás Alonso, the expansion of digital channels has also contributed to broadening financial inclusion, in a context where 65% of the adult population has access to some banking service, although with opportunities for growth.
"The Dominican financial system has already built a solid foundation for digitalization, and we have seen strong progress in recent years, progress supported by the numbers," he said.
From Visa's perspective, the evolution of the ecosystem has been favored by conditions specific to the country. In this regard, Gustavo Turquía highlighted the Dominican Republic's economic and institutional stability and the rapid adoption of new technologies by consumers as key factors in the development of digital payments.
The panel, moderated by Nicolás Franco, CEO of Socorro Partners for Spain and Latin America, also addressed trends that are redefining the financial business, including instant payments, digital wallets, digital onboarding, open banking, embedded finance, tokenization and stablecoins.
Franco argued that the next stage will be marked by greater integration between banks and fintech companies, based on the complementary capabilities of both sectors. As an example, he explained that the regional growth of digital wallets requires the support of banking institutions due to their role in financial intermediation.
