Movii

Private

Colombian digital payment platform and e-money institution focused on financial inclusion for the unbanked, offering a mobile wallet, virtual Mastercard, and a nationwide cash-in/cash-out network.

Bogotá, Colombia | Digital Wallet | Est. 2017 | Website

At a Glance

Strength

Movii's e-money institution license and Mastercard virtual card give it a distinct positioning from wallet-only players — users can transact anywhere Mastercard is accepted, dramatically expanding utility.

Challenge

Operating in the lowest-income segments means lower average transaction values, lower credit appetite, and higher operational costs per customer — a challenging unit economics equation.

Opportunity

Remittance corridors — US-to-Colombia and Spain-to-Colombia — are a natural product extension for a platform already serving Colombia's lower-income population, many of whom receive family transfers from abroad.

Founded on Financial Exclusion

Movii was built around a conviction that Colombia's financial system had failed a large portion of its own population. In a country where tens of millions of adults had no bank account and limited access to formal financial services, the opportunity was clear — but the execution challenge was real. Movii launched in 2017 with an e-money institution license from the Superintendencia Financiera, a regulatory category designed precisely for mobile payment platforms serving populations outside the traditional banking perimeter.

The Mastercard Partnership

One of Movii's most important early decisions was securing a virtual Mastercard for every account. This gave Movii users the ability to pay online and at any merchant accepting Mastercard — not just within a closed-loop ecosystem. For a customer who had never had a card before, this was transformative. The partnership also gave Movii credibility and reach it could not have built organically, positioning the wallet as a genuine substitute for a debit account rather than just a transfer tool.

Government Disbursements

A significant portion of Movii's transaction volume has come through its role as a disbursement channel for government social programs — conditional cash transfers, emergency subsidies, and similar payments that Colombian authorities needed to deliver rapidly and at scale to low-income recipients. Movii's infrastructure proved well-suited to this use case: fast account opening, no minimum balance, and a network of cash-out points in the neighborhoods where recipients live. This gave Movii both volume and a direct relationship with Colombia's most financially underserved population.

Correspondent Network

Digital wallets that ignore cash are incomplete products in a country where a large share of the population still handles everyday transactions in physical currency. Movii built a correspondent network — partnerships with convenience stores, pharmacies, and small retailers — allowing users to deposit and withdraw cash close to where they live and work. This network is operationally complex to maintain but represents a genuine barrier to replication for competitors who have not invested in the same infrastructure.

Competitive Pressures

Movii's strategic challenge is existential: it is competing in the financial inclusion space against two products (Nequi and Daviplata) backed by Colombia's two largest banks, with deeper pockets, larger teams, and the distribution advantage of existing customer bases in the millions. Movii's differentiation lies in its independence, its Mastercard integration, and its depth in the lowest-income segments — but sustaining that differentiation while growing revenues is the central test the company faces.

Editorial Assessment

The Good, The Bad & Opportunities

The Good

Movii's e-money institution license and Mastercard virtual card give it a distinct positioning from wallet-only players — users can transact anywhere Mastercard is accepted, dramatically expanding utility.
The focus on estratos 1–3 and the government disbursement channel represents a defensible niche: Movii has built real infrastructure for reaching Colombia's most financially excluded population.
The correspondent network (cash-in/cash-out points) solves the last-mile problem that pure-digital wallets ignore — critical in a country where significant cash handling still occurs outside urban centers.

The Challenge

Operating in the lowest-income segments means lower average transaction values, lower credit appetite, and higher operational costs per customer — a challenging unit economics equation.
Dependency on government disbursement programs (subsidies, conditional transfers) creates concentration risk; policy changes can shift volumes quickly and unpredictably.
The e-money license, while flexible, does not allow Movii to pay interest on balances or underwrite credit at scale — limiting the product's ability to deepen financial relationships.
The segment Movii serves is also the most heavily targeted by informal financial services and loan sharks — competing with deeply entrenched cash behaviors requires more than a digital wallet.
Nequi and Daviplata have enormous distribution advantages backed by the country's two largest banks, and both have expanded their financial inclusion reach aggressively — leaving limited white space for Movii to grow into.

Opportunities

Remittance corridors — US-to-Colombia and Spain-to-Colombia — are a natural product extension for a platform already serving Colombia's lower-income population, many of whom receive family transfers from abroad.
Insurance micro-products (life, accident, funeral) distributed through the Movii app would serve a population that is almost entirely uninsured and would represent a meaningful new revenue stream at low additional customer acquisition cost.
Gig economy partnerships with Rappi, inDrive, and food delivery platforms to handle driver earnings disbursement would add large recurring transaction volume and serve a demographic structurally aligned with Movii's user base.
Government digital identity and financial inclusion infrastructure contracts represent a potential B2G revenue stream — Movii's existing disbursement relationships position it as a credible partner for expanding state digital payments programs.

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