Redeban

Private

Colombia's largest card payment network and acquirer, processing the majority of debit and credit card transactions nationally through a network of over 400,000 POS terminals and ATMs.

Bogotá, Colombia | Payment Network | Est. 1986 | Website

At a Glance

Strength

Redeban's POS terminal network — built over four decades — represents physical infrastructure that no new entrant could replicate without enormous capital investment and multi-year deployment timelines.

Challenge

The traditional POS terminal is being disrupted by software-based POS (SoftPOS) technology that turns any NFC-enabled smartphone into a payment acceptance device — Redeban's hardware estate becomes a liability as this transition accelerates.

Opportunity

SoftPOS technology — enabling any NFC-enabled Android smartphone to accept contactless payments — would allow Redeban to extend acceptance into the vast informal merchant segment without the capital cost of hardware deployment.

Four Decades of Infrastructure

Redeban has been processing Colombian card payments since 1986 — a span of time that covers the entire history of electronic payments in the country. What began as the infrastructure for making credit card acceptance possible at Colombian merchants has grown into the backbone of the national payment acceptance network: over 400,000 POS terminals, an ATM network serving consumers nationwide, and settlement infrastructure that processes a significant share of Colombia's daily electronic transaction volume. This is not just a business — it is critical financial infrastructure.

The Acquiring Duopoly

Colombia's card acquiring market is structured as a functional duopoly, with Redeban and Credibanco processing the vast majority of card transactions nationally. Both operate under the oversight of the Superintendencia Financiera and are subject to interoperability requirements that prevent either from establishing an exclusive technical lock on the market. The duopoly has been stable for decades, and the competitive dynamics between the two players — both ultimately owned by consortia of Colombian banks — have been cooperative rather than destructive. This stability has allowed both to invest in infrastructure without the margin pressure of a more fragmented competitive market.

Terminal Network and Merchant Relationships

Redeban's most tangible asset is its terminal estate. Over decades of deployment, the company has installed POS terminals in virtually every category of Colombian merchant — supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants, gas stations, hotels — building operational relationships and technical integrations that represent real switching costs. A merchant who changes acquiring providers must replace hardware, retrain staff, update accounting integrations, and manage a transition period during which payment acceptance could be disrupted. These frictions protect Redeban's existing portfolio even as competitive alternatives emerge.

The Contactless Transition

The shift from magnetic stripe and chip-and-PIN to contactless and NFC payments represents both a challenge and an opportunity for Redeban. The challenge is the investment required to upgrade an estate of hundreds of thousands of terminals to contactless capability. The opportunity is that contactless terminals also serve as the acceptance infrastructure for digital wallets and mobile payments — meaning that Redeban's network, if properly upgraded, can process transactions from Nequi, Daviplata, and other digital wallet providers as well as traditional cards. The transition is well underway but far from complete.

Long-Term Structural Risks

The deeper strategic challenge for Redeban is not contactless adoption — it is the growth of account-to-account payment systems that bypass card networks entirely. Colombia's Transfiya platform, PSE, and QR-based payment systems all enable transactions that flow directly from one bank account to another, generating no interchange revenue for card networks and no acquiring fees for terminal operators. As these systems grow — driven by regulatory encouragement, digital wallet adoption, and zero-fee positioning — they structurally reduce the total addressable market for card-based acquiring. Redeban's long-term competitive strategy must grapple with this headwind in a way that its current business model does not easily accommodate.

Editorial Assessment

The Good, The Bad & Opportunities

The Good

Redeban's POS terminal network — built over four decades — represents physical infrastructure that no new entrant could replicate without enormous capital investment and multi-year deployment timelines.
The Colombian acquiring market's duopoly structure (Redeban and Credibanco) has historically produced stable, predictable margins, as the competitive dynamic between two players is far less destructive than a fragmented market.
Interoperability mandates from the SFC have positioned Redeban as a neutral infrastructure provider that must serve all participants in the payments ecosystem, giving it a protected role regardless of how the market evolves.

The Challenge

The traditional POS terminal is being disrupted by software-based POS (SoftPOS) technology that turns any NFC-enabled smartphone into a payment acceptance device — Redeban's hardware estate becomes a liability as this transition accelerates.
Contactless and QR payment adoption in Colombia has grown rapidly, driven by digital wallets and newer payment methods that route around traditional acquiring infrastructure — Redeban's transaction volume growth is under pressure from structural market shifts.
The duopoly structure that has protected margins is also an impediment to innovation — companies that face little competitive pressure have less incentive to invest aggressively in the product and experience improvements that merchants increasingly demand.
Redeban's shareholder structure — owned by a consortium of Colombian banks — creates governance complexity and conflicting strategic interests that make bold platform pivots difficult to execute even when they are clearly necessary.
The long-term trend toward open-loop digital payments (Transfiya, PSE, digital wallets) flowing directly between accounts reduces the role of card networks entirely — a structural headwind that terminal upgrades and contactless features cannot fully address.

Opportunities

SoftPOS technology — enabling any NFC-enabled Android smartphone to accept contactless payments — would allow Redeban to extend acceptance into the vast informal merchant segment without the capital cost of hardware deployment.
A QR payment network built on top of existing merchant relationships would allow Redeban to participate in the account-to-account payment growth being driven by Transfiya and digital wallets, rather than being bypassed by it.
Value-added services for merchants — analytics dashboards, loyalty program infrastructure, dynamic currency conversion — represent high-margin revenue streams that leverage the existing terminal relationship without requiring new hardware.
An acquiring infrastructure partnership with fintechs and neobanks that need settlement capability would convert potential competitors into distribution partners, expanding processing volume through channels Redeban would not otherwise reach.

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