Diego Toala

"In 2014, according to a study performed by the National Institute of Statistics and Surveys, 40.4% of the population in Ecuador had used the internet during the previous 12 months. While it is true that rural areas experienced an increase from 17.8% the previous year to 25.3%, there continue to be areas which still lack internet connectivity.

As a result of the limited access to the internet, the rural, Ecuadorian population is not benefitting from the advantages of this technology, such as e-commerce, and the ability to manage their bank accounts from home. So this young Ecuadorian created a system which represents the closest thing to a bank teller´s window available to many residents of the region who live in areas without physical bank branch offices. It is called Ventanilla Móvil (Mobile Teller), a service offered by the Santa Ana Savings and Credit Co-op which is underpinned by the software developed by TechnoPark.

The service allows the rural population to obtain agricultural and personal loans, as along as the customer holds an account. Before the launch of Ventanilla Móvil, all rural-based transactions required a manual record.

Toala´s software efficiently and automatically allows these movements to be managed without an internet connection. In addition to deposits, the software can be easily adapted to manage other financial transactions while also increasing security for the user and incentivizing savings and the use of financial tools by users who are geographically removed from their bank´s offices. The service´s database contains more than 8.000 users from a rural province with a population of more than 500.000 inhabitants."