CREATE-X Startup Brings Digital Access to the Unbanked

When OMSCS student Victor Espinosa was an undergraduate student in Bogotá, he kept running into the same problem every time he tried to order books or basic items online: He didn’t have a credit card. Instead, he had to give cash to someone who had a credit card and ask them to purchase for him. This wasn’t strange in Colombia.

“It was frustrating, but it showed me how many people were being left out of the digital world,” Espinosa said. “In Colombia, only about two out of 10 people have a credit card. Cash is the main form of payment, but everything online requires digital access.”

That gap sparked the idea that would evolve into Loto Punto, a fintech startup building self-service kiosks to bridge the physical and digital worlds for unbanked communities.