Colombian banks have access to millions of customer conversations: through their service lines, in their chats, and across their digital channels – including their Twitter and Instagram pages. Those interactions contain the real causes behind the complaints, repeating friction patterns, and the exact words customers use when something goes wrong.

The situation is dire. In late 2025, Colombia’s Financial Superintendency received 2.76 million complaints related to banking services and operations; two-thirds of customers had at least one complaint that warranted taking the time to lodge with their bank. And the single most common reason for complaints was unrecognized transactions, accounting for 39.8% of cases. 

Beyond pointing out a deficit in one bank or financial institution, the throughline remains: Colombia faces ongoing structural problems that plague customers across the country. 

With manual auditing, a company can review just 3% of its interactions – the remaining 97% are uncharted territory. That’s precisely where the intelligence that could meaningfully reduce those 2.76 million complaints lives. 

What’s clear is that nearly 40% of complaints boil down to the same problem: unrecognized transactions. What remains hazy, however, is what is behind the phenomenon – because of the unprocessed data and information. 

Is it concentrated on specific products, or are certain customer segments facing this more than others? These are considerations – critical to solving the root cause – that a 3% snapshot of the picture can never answer. 

Yet the raw data is there: customers interacting with chatbots or speaking to a representative on the phone almost always includes the core details to unravel the mystery: the issue, the time, the place – all this information against the backdrop of the account holder details that are on file. 

That untold information is the salve needed to treat the systemic issue that continues to fester. 

Evidently, leaning on manual approaches to managing customer care is not sufficient. The nationwide customer care headaches in Colombian banking will only get worse, at the cost of customer loyalty and brand reputation. 

Technology can therefore not be left out of the equation; AI models are now sophisticated enough to not only analyze millions of customer conversations but also reason and learn through that data to simulate human response and decision-making. 

Cognitive AI, for one, is able to contextualize information as well, even in complex situations. In fact, 75% of customer care leaders view AI as a force for strengthening human intelligence, not replacing it. 

And that innovation exists on local soil, built for the particular needs of Colombia’s banking ecosystem. 

One Colombian startup, Kognia, has built Alan CX Insights precisely for this. Kognia’s platform analyzes 100% of contact center interactions and turns that mass of conversations into identified root causes, detected patterns, and concrete improvement recommendations.

“Reducing complaints and getting to the crux of these issues is about so much more than simply closing tickets faster. It’s about empowering banks and customers alike, creating a system where people feel seen and heard, while building much-needed trust,” said Luis Guillermo Pardo, CEO of Kognia. 

“We designed Alan CX Insights to remove the pain points from the process and the guesswork that only compounds confusion. It’s about bringing transparency and the full story to light, on a constant basis, for each and every case.” 

With Alan CX Insights, every customer interaction is logged and audited – no more closed cases without resolution. The platform also extracts insights and feeds these back to create a constantly-improving and accurate system.

Already, the startup is seeing more than promising results: customer satisfaction has risen by 40% as the platform has driven first-contact resolution by 25%. Whereas manual processes take up to weeks to action complaints, Kognia’s AI can simultaneously process thousands of interactions. 

These numbers are pertinent to another dimension of Colombia’s systemic issues: accessibility to secure financial services. According to reports, 29.3% of complaints stemmed from low-value deposits. So, digital banking means lower-income account holders are no longer removed from the equation – in theory. 

But when friction occurs in their transactions, banks run the alarming risk of these account holders – who can’t resolve an issue with their basic savings in the current setup – walking away from the system altogether. 

Banks sit on a slew of siloed digital systems made up of millions of transaction records, customer and account records, service logs, and more. More often than not, these systems don’t speak to each other, making it difficult to build a coherent picture of any single customer’s journey, let alone identify patterns across millions.

Innovations like Kognia’s Alan CX Insights bridge those gaps, ensuring a logged complaint leads to an identified root cause and a prompt resolution so it doesn’t repeat. 

Now, amid the AI boom sweeping through Latin America, conversation intelligence and AI-driven CX analysis are strategic differentiators that grant banks and financial institutions an invaluable competitive advantage. 

Colombia’s banks are not short of data. But they do lack the time and manual resources to answer every customer’s complaints – and customers’ patience is waning. The tools now exist to turn those complaints into intelligence.

Featured image: Jhonny Estrada via Unsplash+

Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.

The post Colombian banking’s customer care is in disarray – could this local startup fix that? appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombia is mourning the death of legendary singer and dancer Totó la Momposina, the artist who carried the rhythms of the Caribbean coast to audiences around the world. 

Totó’s death was disclosed in a statement by Colombia’s Ministry of Culture today, which described her as “the eternal master”, praising her decades-long contribution to Cumbia, Porro, Mapalé and Bullerengue music.

Her family confirmed that Totó died on Sunday, May 17, in Celaya, Mexico at age 85, after years battling neurocognitive health complications.

Born Sonia Bazanta Vides in 1940 in Talaigua Nuevo, Bolívar, near the historic river town of Mompox, Totó devoted her life to preserving and promoting traditional Caribbean music rooted in African, Indigenous and Spanish influences.

For more than six decades, Totó became the voice of Colombia’s Caribbean soul. Raised in a musical family — her father was a drummer and her mother a singer and dancer — she began performing at an early age before later studying folklore and music in Bogotá, Paris and Cuba. 

In 1982, she accompanied Gabriel García Márquez to Stockholm during his Nobel Prize ceremony, where she performed Colombian Caribbean music before international dignitaries — a moment that became part of the country’s cultural history.

Her international breakthrough came with the 1993 album La Candela Viva, released through Peter Gabriel’s Real World label, which introduced global audiences to the song “El Pescador” and to authentic Colombian rhythms.

Over the years, Totó collaborated with and influenced artists across genres, while her music was sampled by international musicians including Jay-Z and Major Lazer. Her song “Latinoamérica” alongside Calle 13 won her two Latin Grammy Awards in 2011. She officially retired from performing in 2022 due to health complications.

Totó received numerous honors throughout her career, including the Womex Award in 2006, Colombia’s Life and Work Award in 2011, and the Latin Grammy Award for Musical Excellence in 2013.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro honored the singer in a post on X today, calling her “an exalted figure of Colombian Caribbean art and culture,” adding, “may she fly high to the stars.” 

Her family also announced that a tribute honoring the singer-songwriter will be held on May 27 at the National Capitol in Bogotá, as the country prepares to bid farewell to one of the most influential voices in its cultural history.

The post Totó la Momposina, Colombia’s treasured Caribbean singer, dies at 85 appeared first on The Bogotá Post.