About 40 million Mexicans are excluded from financial products because banks don’t think they belong, but Filiberto Castro does.
The former banking executive worked for a decade at banks including Citi and Scotiabank before moving into the fintech space to become head of growth at Confio. That’s where Castro says he’s seen how technology can better help people access financial services that were previously out of reach.
He joined co-founders David Hernandez and Amran Frey at Confio and co-founded Aviva with Israel Garcia, a Mexico-based fintech startup bringing working capital to underserved communities.
Aviva’s approach uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to match customers’ spoken words with real-time loan application fields. Within minutes, customers can qualify for a nano-business or home improvement loan of up to $1,000.
Aviva co-founders, from left, Amran Frei, David Hernandez and Filiberto Castro. Image Credits: Aviva
Unlike other fintechs that focus on big cities, Aviva focuses on small communities where the company can overcome the lack of trust in banks, predatory interest rates and affordability to users without technical skills, such as smartphones. Financial products directly.
Now, the company, which was bought for $2.2 million in early seed funding, is rolling out a network of physical and digital boarding kiosks. Five-minute “video call booths” use biometrics and biometrics to determine a customer’s risk and willingness to pay to write loans.
“No one has done anything for this segment in the last 25 years,” Castro told TechCrunch. A lot has been done in big cities but with deep technology, AI and video calling we can set up bodies to investigate loans and check low interest rates. This has the potential to create a new middle class in Mexico and later Latin America.
The company earns money by financing the interest on the loan, but it can charge less than the current banks. Average interest rates in Mexico can be as high as triple digits, but Aviva can charge around 80%, which is still high.
Aviva is still in its early stages. It started production in November with 10 employees and since then has three kiosk locations where more than 500 customers have passed through. The kiosks are located in the towns of Chalco de Diaz, Ixtapaluca and Texcoco, about an hour’s drive from Mexico City. The company is seeing fewer loan defaults than originally thought, Castro said.
The pre-seed was led by Wolf Ventures and joined by Newtopia VC, Seedstars International Ventures, 500 Startups, Magna Capital VC, Xtraordinary VP and a group of angel investors.
With the new capital, Aviva will invest in building its lending and underwriting system, preparing to launch the company’s credit card and expanding kiosks. In the future, Castro sees the company offering a full banking offering to its customers.
“The credit card gives us a way to get credit if customers don’t have a bank account,” he said. “This is very good for us because it shows that we are addressing the right segment – those that have nothing to do with the bank.”
