Ricardo Cuesta Delgado

How would you define Produbanco as a financial institution?

Produbanco is a bank with extensive experience. It has a wide portfolio of products and services to efficiently serve the corporate, business, SME, and individual sectors. It has a multidisciplinary team of collaborators that is committed to a high quality of service. Throughout its 43 successful years, Produbanco has won various local and international recognitions that affirm its success. Additionally, Produbanco received the AAA risk rating from PCR Pacific Credit Rating.

What role does Produbanco play in the evolution of Ecuadorian banking?

Banking in Ecuador is transforming itself digitally, which entails a great responsibility. Understanding customers and listening to their needs is part of our job in order to be able to offer a quality service and products that solve their needs. Produbanco works daily to offer financial solutions and is transforming itself, both in terms of its culture and digitally. We develop new products for the comfort of our customers, designed to facilitate their needs. In this transformation process that includes innovation, we seek to implement projects with a vision different from the traditional, generating a cultural change of which all employees are part. This has been achieved through internal and external communication, through traditional and digital channels that allow us to disseminate the organizational culture of Produbanco, supported by its ProduLab innovation laboratory. In the lab, the company works with highly qualified multi-disciplinary teams. They constantly develop ideas and generate experiences for clients and collaborators. The digital transformation will continue as part of the strategy adopted by the financial system, which has been observed in a more noticeable manner in the wake of the pandemic. One of the biggest challenges is the ability to maintain personalized attention from business advisors during the digital experience. As of December 2021, 69% of our active individual customers are registered on our digital channels; 78% of our legal clients are also legal entities.

What characteristics define Produbanco as a sustainable bank?

Produbanco is a green bank. Green has associations with nature, hope, life, positivism, abundance, freedom, the future, and efficient technology. Produbanco has assumed sustainability as a strategic commitment with the conviction that banking is a key multiplier of sustainable development. It is an agent of change in promoting the construction of a more responsible society in harmony with the planet. We are the first bank in Ecuador to obtain an international certification of Carbon Neutrality according to ISO14064-3 and verified by Societé Générale de Surveillance. This certification is global and specializes in quantifying, evaluating, and defining actions to improve and reduce the carbon footprint of organizations, under strict guidelines of the Carbon Neutral Protocol. Produbanco was one of the founding signatories of the Principles for Responsible Banking, ratifying its strategic commitment and aligning its sustainable business approach with the UN’s SDG and the Paris Climate Agreement.

What results has the Green Lines of Produbanco program had to date?

Our program Green Lines of Produbanco was set up in 2016, and since then, we have awarded USD325 million in 442 operations to 206 clients. To date, this portfolio has a balance of USD101 million. In 2021 alone, we generated credits of USD105 million. Some 64% of credits granted was directed toward the agriculture and fisheries sector for promoting sustainable practices in these activities. These include more efficient risk and energy use systems.