Our Purpose
At Grupo Bancolombia we have built a history of strength, integrity, responsibility, proximity, respect, and doing right business. We are aware that we play a proactive role in an environment that is constantly changing and that faces huge economic, social, and environmental challenges.
This is why we have a purpose that summarizes what we do best, what we truly love doing, and what we want to deliver to the world: We promote sustainable economic development to achieve the well-being of all.
We respond to a global agenda based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that connects us with other society actors to take impact actions, which in our case are prioritized in three areas:
- Promote the competitiveness of the productive network, with a special focus in boosting agriculture, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and business transformation.
- Build more sustainable cities and communities, with greater access to decent housing, clean transportation and less polluted environments.
- Promote financial inclusion, so that more businesses and individuals can access the loans they need for their projects, with a special emphasis on women.
Our Aspiration
We are looking for leaders; we want to set the trend and stand out in the market through our innovative services that quickly adapt to the needs of our clients and exceeds the proposals of our competitors; we want to understand the transformations currently taking place in the industry, we want to innovate and be ahead in the market, as well as to get ready to offer better solutions.
We also want our employees to be pride of us; we want to have high performance teams who are happy to work every day because they recognize that their contribution is important for the dreams of many other people and companies. They know they work for a superior end, they know this is a company that provides them with all the tools for them to be more professional and human.
We also want to be a sustainable company that seeks, with every single action we implement, the economic, social, and environmental welfare of the territories where we are located so that we can continue growing and consolidating over time.
History
It has been 142 years since the creation of the Bancolombia Group. Since our inception, we have preserved our purpose of being an economic and social development driving force for the countries in which we are present.
Throughout our history, innovation in customer experience has been a constant goal and there is plenty of evidence of our work in this regard. For instance, in 1969 at BIC we launched into the market the first credit card in Latin America, and in 1985 we brought into operation the ATMs network.
In 1996, our institution pioneered in the Colombian financial system by launching the first On-Line Office for Individual Customers. In 1999 we inaugurated our On-Line Office for Institutional Clients, thereby enabling the first Internet payment system in Colombia; one year later, in 2000, we launched E-Card Mastercard, the first e-credit card in the country for online purchases. In 2006 we opened the first banking correspondent in Colombia, a channel that has already been exported to El Salvador. Plus, with the APP launched in 2012, we currently enable over 230 million transactions per year.
It has been a history of innovations, not only in products and services, but also in how we relate with our customers, constantly seeking to improve their quality of life through an Ever-More Human Banking approach.