The N5 was recently recognized by Forbes Central America in an extraordinary article, highlighting how it contributes to innovation in the financial sector using Artificial Intelligence strategically. Our deep experience in banking technology and the complexity that legacy systems can generate when a financial institution seeks digital transformation places us at the forefront of the revolution in this sector.
In this article, we will dive into the details of our unique solutions, which made this notable media exposure possible. We invite you to explore the ins and outs of N5, which constantly seeks to contribute to the real success of its clients.
The goal of this venture is to simplify the financial industry through artificial intelligence
N5 is a venture that seeks to simplify the financial and insurance industry through artificial intelligence. Its technological solutions already have a presence in 15 countries, some of them in Central America, and it already plans to reach nine other regions flying the flag of the digital transformation of the financial sector.
Simplifying the financial industry through artificial intelligence has become the dream come true of Julián Colombo, founder of N5, who admits that talking about the digital transformation of banks sounds like the least sexy thing in life, but for him it has become his greatest passion.
After working for more than 25 years in the financial industry and in 19 countries, Colombo speaks knowingly: “All banks have the same problem: technological entropy.”
He explains: There are so many softwares used by banks and some very old ones, made with different technologies and that require huge amounts of energy to work, that “one understands that there is a physical impossibility of connecting these elements.” And he says, “We figured out how to solve that problem.”
The equation is that “the financial industry requires a very aggressive simplification process; Instead of thinking about one more piece of software, you have to think about hundreds less software.”
In this way, N5 created “a platform that in a single place, with a single logic, does virtually everything a bank needs to operate.”
The founder of this venture explains that the basis is found in five components that every bank or insurance company requires: customers, banks, channels, processes and integration of all of the above.
Colombo elaborates: You need customer intelligence — what they told me, what they need, how I talk to them, what their story is — all of that is managed in a piece of software called CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). In terms of employees, you need to know, for example, who is the best at selling insurance, who advises a customer better, who doesn’t make all the efforts; “So we created software that manages employees, managers, and human resources.”
On the other hand, there is no industry that has more channels than a bank: you can go to an ATM, a branch, write an email, talk to them on social networks, go to a collection area, a call center, a mobile, a call banking, swipe your credit card through a terminal. “There are dozens of different channels through which a bank obtains information from us and returns it, that has to be orchestrated, that’s why there is an Omni Channel Manager, which concentrates all the channels.”
Not to mention that a bank can have up to 720 processes to manage — a mortgage sale, a term deposit, a double collection complaint, the evaluation of a risk portfolio, the evaluation of an executive. To do this, they created the BPM (Business Process Manager) module.
And in the end, those four big blocks are “orchestrated by a single data layer.” Traditionally, a bank has dozens of platforms; It has a mortgage software that has nothing to do with the platform for the sale of a loan, or with evaluation processes or performance of an executive. “We bring everything to one place, with a lot fewer parts, where everything is natively integrated and everything is very simple and very fluid,” says Colombo.
“The magic happens when you see it all together working and you see how this simplified the bank in an incredible way, and it’s just a platform.”
The industrialization of decisions
Artificial intelligence (AI), or what Julián Colombo defines as the industrialization of decision-making, has played a decisive role in this process.
Before, “you went to the bank, and the only thing the teller looked at was if you had money in your account and he gave it to you. That is a very basic way of managing data, but now in the same operation, I could extract much more data: if the person was at this ATM before, if they have withdrawn the maximum amount of money, if they have our app on their mobile and how far away and, based on that, determine if it is fraud or not.”
Now, when someone withdraws money, “we can take a picture of this event and we know where the person is, what they’re doing, and instead of giving the information to a single piece of software, we give it to a bunch of little orchestrated robots that work together to achieve a bank’s goals: reduce its risks, reduce its risks improve the quality of service, increase their profitability and reduce their operating costs.”
Looking to the future, Colombo envisions a banking industry where open finance is the guiding axis of operation, and this means that people own their information and can share it with the banks they want, to access better offers automatically, as in a kind of comparator.
For now, “the information that the bank has about me is from the bank, or at least there is no regulation that indicates otherwise, that generates a suboptimal situation for the customer, because he can only receive offers from the bank that knows him best.”
In open finance, banks could access that information and improve offers in the market, so that the customer can choose the best one.
Colombo also sees the end of the geographical confinement of the financial service; Soon you will be able to go to a store and with the data of your face, have the possibility of paying in different ways. “The system will become very ubiquitous; If I need to invest, I will have different credit providers immediately.”
Entrepreneurship is like crossing oceans
Julián does not deny that entrepreneurship in Latin America is more complex than in many other geographies, but he operates under a philosophy: pedes in terra ad sidera visus (feet on the ground and gaze on the stars), which means “trying to do the day to day well, being very self-demanding with the wisdom of our promises and very ambitious with our vision”.
And he exemplifies: “Entrepreneurship is like swimming across oceans; It’s glamorous when you get to the end and they put the medal on you, but every single minute you were swimming was complex, demanding, challenging, every minute was critical.”
For this economist, “every day there are challenges, every day is full of possibilities, opportunities and pitfalls. The difference is attitude. Churchill said that you have to be optimistic because being something else didn’t make sense, it’s not conducive.”
Under that dynamic, Argentina’s Julián Colombo sees N5 quadrupling in size by the end of 2024, and one day in the not too distant future it will be the only software an insurance company or bank needs to operate.
Editorial: Forbes
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