Interview with the CEO of CreditForce, Juan González

Juan González is CEO of CreditForce, one of our Premium Members from Costa Rica. They are a company that helps companies to optimize their credit and collection processes through their technological solutions

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Finnovating (F): Could you summarize a brief review of your professional career as an introduction?

Juan González (JG): I am computer-trained and I have more than 30 years of experience in the Information Technology area, of these, 20 years in the financial sector, specifically Credit Card processing and consumer Credit platforms.

For 10 years I was General Manager of the largest regional credit card processing center for Central America, an operation that in 2007 was acquired by Citibank.

In 2009, together with other partners, I founded the company FINANCIAL IT SERVICES (FITS), a company specialized in providing staff augmentation services for companies in the financial segment.

 

(F): Please tell us a little about CreditForce and how the FinTech started to be.

(JG): In 2014, together with other partners, I founded the first FinTech in Costa Rica called Kuiki Credit, which was focused on financing the final consumer, known today as BUY NOW PAY LATER. Kuiki Credit offered for the first time in the country a virtual and innovative financing alternative supported by state-of-the-art technology for businesses to offer their customers credit for their purchases of products or services, under the principles of agility and immediate speed, and paying all in installments. In 2019, upon reaching a portfolio of more than USD $ 30MM, Kuiki Credit and a network of more than 1000 affiliated businesses was acquired by a regional financial group.

CreditForce emerged as a spin-off of Kuiki Credit and from 2016 focused on offering platform implementation and development services to financial institutions. At this time, the potential of the different modules offered by our solutions began to be exploited, achieving efficiency and generating savings for our clients.

The 4 modules that we offer since then are:

• CreditOriginations for the origination of credits, a system that allows to originate credits from a branch or an online platform, establishing rules and adapting to the desired level of risk of the client. It integrates with FICO score table products and allows the generation of credit strategies to generate greater authorization from clients without taking risks, achieving greater capitalization of profitability, and approving credits in minutes.
• CreditStore that allows you to establish new credit origination and consumption points to increase your profits, speed up the disbursement of credits and enhance the purchasing attitude of your customers.
• CreditEngine, a portfolio engine where control of the credit portfolio is obtained with great flexibility in the parameterization and management of the portfolio, its products, promotions, and much more.
• CreditCollections, a collection management system that allows you to manage a timely, agile, and effective strategy to manage your clients, maintaining a good relationship and increasing your recovery and profitability.

These solutions are modular with the possibility of total integration.

 

(F): How did the idea come about?

(JG): After having worked for several years in the financial sector and having been exposed to working and evaluating different technological platforms, we came to the conclusion that by combining our skills and knowledge we could offer a world-class solution to a fraction of the investment, allowing businesses to focus on growing their business without losing focus on technology and with minimal investment.

 

(F): You are the current CEO of CreditForce, how does the company fit in the European FinTech ecosystem?

(JG): We see CreditForce as a very appropriate and competitive alternative within the vertical of “Financial Infrastructure” given its potential and easy integration within the ecosystem of solutions of traditional financial organizations and FinTech.

Our modules also work perfectly with FinTechs and neobanks around the world who want to use solutions that have already been proven successful, vs. make an investment in your own system. The banking and lending industry is constantly changing and in order to focus on boosting your business it is important to be flexible and integrate with an external system that allows it to continue growing.

 

(F): What is CreditForce’s value proposition?

(JG): Optimize credit and collection processes through our technological solutions, and at the same time create the possibility of profiting and growing the credit portfolio of businesses.

Our objective is to add value, putting our experience at the service of our clients with suitable solutions so that they can boost their credit businesses, under an accompaniment model.

We achieve this by applying our 25+ years of experience in the credit industry, as well as in software development.

Can you imagine connecting with CreditForce? It’s possible! Enter the global startup platform.

(F): Who is CreditForce’s customer?

(JG): The modular platform with the possibility of total integration of CreditForce provides solutions to companies related to consumer credit, whether they are banks, finance companies, FinTechs, cooperatives, savings banks, and/or appliance stores.

Another natural client of us are Neobanks or BaaS companies that can offer our solutions to their clients, in order to change and grow quickly to enhance their success.

 

(F): What is your vision for CreditForce in the next 5-10 years?

(JG): To become one of the FinTech of preference in platforms to boost the consumer credit business in Ibeoramerica.

 

(F): How do you think the implementation of digital functionalities will impact the traditional business model?

(JG): Traditional banking has a strong legacy that many years ago was built to last. However, that has been changing and today the traditional model must be built with the ability to constantly change and be adaptable. That is why our approach is a mixed model for those companies that are highly dependent on their legacy systems, where without substituting their platforms they can have a FinTech environment and services within their organization and Legacy infrastructure.

For example, some of the credit systems in the banking or financial world continue to be inefficient, delaying the granting of credit to the client and often causing the loss of sales opportunity. With digital credit solutions, we can reduce credit granting periods from days to minutes, improving customer experience and satisfaction, reducing withdrawals and saving costs for companies.

Another example are the BaaS, Open Banking, or Neobanks models that provide a modern technological architecture to banking or lending services through other platforms, such as CreditForce solutions.

 

(F): Is CreditForce interested in partnering with large companies in the sector? How do you think Finnovating can help you with this goal?

(JG): Indeed, we are very interested in creating alliances with FinTechs, Neobanks and BaaS platforms. We can offer the necessary technology so that Neobanks and BaaS can start offering lending and we would give them the opportunity to incorporate credit and recovery management modules that they can offer to their clients to their platforms. We know that CreditForce has the necessary components to complement these companies and they are solutions that have already been proven and are successful in the market.

Finnovating is key in this regard, since it can quickly connect us with Neobanks and platforms that have these needs.

 

(F): How will CreditForce expand internationally?

(JG): The first avenue of expansion is to continue growing in Latin America where we already have a presence in 8 countries. The second is our expansion to Europe through the office that we have just opened in Spain. In a first phase, our objective is to grow in the Spanish market during 2022 and open new business channels in Europe once we have consolidated our solutions in Spain. The third way of expansion is through BaaS and Neobanks platforms, where we are sure that our complementary solutions for them can be used anywhere in the world.

 

(F): Why is CreditForce interested in being part of Finnovating? What are you looking for in the first global FinTech platform?

(JG): We are interested in being part of Finnovating since we have access to the entire FinTech ecosystem in one place. It brings us closer to suppliers, partners, and clients that can help us grow and improve our products, but above all, it allows us to connect with any company in the ecosystem anywhere in the world quickly and directly.

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ceo creditforce juan gonzález