To a large extent, the bases of the country’s economic growth are entrenched in micro, small and medium-sized companies, characterized by being promoters of millions of jobs, so workers are considered a vital part of the DNA of each one of them.
And it is that, by 2022, MSMEs were in charge of generating nearly 80% of jobs in Colombia (approximately 16 million jobs), thus representing 99.5% of the business fabric and contributing 35% to GDP national, according to data provided by the Colombian Association of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Acopi, and the National Association of Financial Institutions, Anif.
However, the operational personnel, that essential link in the chain and that contributes so much value to business development, is constantly affected by the lack of opportunities to obtain and pay for what they need or desire, finding as the main obstacle the difficulty of access to the financial system or specific products, such as payrolls. Likewise, the fears that are generated around these discount solutions and the lack of knowledge about the maximum amount in which the income can be used to pay financial commitments, since, according to the most recent Financial Inclusion Report delivered by the Banca de las Oportunidades, eight out of 10 Colombians do not know how to calculate their debt capacity, which puts their basic expenses at risk.
These difficulties show the need for solutions tailored to the workers, so that they do not waste their income and, on the contrary, manage to obtain other sources that allow them to respond to each requirement. An example of these was recently appeared by the Colombian fintech Juancho Te Presta, seeking to strengthen financial and credit inclusion in the country.
It is a digital product called Juancho Te Descuenta, which becomes an option for employees who want access to financing to fulfill their dreams in the short or medium term. “We offer a consumer credit program that is discounted by payroll and is easily executed; this, because we continue to identify the needs of MSMEs and their collaborators, mainly those who received the lowest salaries”, assures María Adelaida Molina, the firm’s new operations manager and an expert in organizational development in the construction, manufacturing, transportation and services sectors.
Loan amounts range from $1 million to $5 million and repayment terms vary between 12, 18, and 24 months. Among the benefits for those who request the credits, the operations leader of Juancho Te presta highlights the differential costs, the security of the process, the agility in the approval of the application (subject to a previous study and the financial capacity of the person), the fact of not needing a guarantor or co-debtor, the automatic disbursement that usually occurs in 24 hours or less and the debit of the salary for each month’s payment.
In the case of employees, they will benefit from increasing the wellness offer for their work teams and from the fact that access to this payroll discount program does not represent any cost for the companies in the agreement.
Likewise, by offering this type of agreement to your collaborators, prevent them from ending up over-indebted or with informal credits such as ‘drop by drop’.
By accessing this type of loan, workers find relief for different situations, ranging from a pending repair at home, to the possibility of having extra expenses at the end of the year, even family vacations that could not be fulfilled, which translates into opportunities for all, more peace of mind, well-being and, therefore, greater business productivity.
One of the main objectives of Juancho te Presta is that by 2025 a third of all their credits will be assigned to this new digital product, with which they seek not only «to benefit that population to the banks that the and other financial entities do not lend them easily», as María Adelaida says, but also to contribute to the inclusion and accessibility goals led by different actors, including Asobancaria, which points out that in the country there are already 34.5 million people who have access to a financial product. However, there is still a long way to go, as there are still another 24 million Colombians who do not have credit.