As chairman of the board of a bank in Puerto Rico, Venezuelan-born financial executive Julio M. Herrera Velutini directs operations with an international focus. Over the past decade, Julio M. Herrera Velutini’s bank has partnered with a major global charitable foundation to sponsor microlending programs in Costa Rica. Microlending has proven to be an effective and popular way for a number of financial institutions to assist communities in Central America. Experts have pointed out that microlending can play a significant role in improving life for some of the more than 800 million people living in extreme poverty worldwide. A study examining 106 developing countries where microlending is available has shown that if the practice is expanded by just 10 percent per recipient, more than 10 million people could be lifted out of poverty. Costa Ricans who have benefited from the growing array of microlending programs include farmers, who use the funds to increase and improve their crops, and women entrepreneurs, who are often among those least likely to obtain traditional loans.
0 Comments
A respected Venezuelan financial executive, Julio M. Herrera Velutini guides an investment bank based in Puerto Rico with a US presence. Deeply rooted in his native country, Julio M. Herrera Velutini is a descendant of Jose Antonio Velutini, a political and business leader who had a prominent role in the early years of Venezuelan history. One of his major accomplishments involved helping to set in place a unique Venezuelan paper currency as the director of Banco Caracas. Venezuela produced its initial run of silver coins in 1879 in various denominations, up to 5 bolivares. Subsequently, gold coins were produced with significantly higher values, and this early hard currency played an important role in boosting the country's economic growth. This early system evolved to keep pace with changing economic necessities. High-value gold coin production ceased in 1912, while only the 5 bolivares gold coin remaining in production until 1936. By the mid-1960s, silver coinage was phased out as well and replaced with nickel. By the late 1990s, high inflation resulted in a completely new set of coins being created, valued at between 10 and 500 bolivares Following the path of his father and grandfather, Julio M. Herrera Velutini ventured into the world of banking and finance after completing his college education. The chairman of an international bank based in Puerto Rico, Julio Herrera Velutini has acquired stakes in several financial firms and made them part of the family holdings. Acquisitions occur often in the business world. Strategic acquisitions are performed to either improve synergy, grow market share, or increase operational efficiency. Synergy is created when two companies with similar products and services come together. One company can acquire another with similar product or service offerings and combine both companies’ resources to reduce operational costs and increase branch locations. Acquisitions lead to increased market share. When a company acquires another operating in a similar industry, essentially a competitor company, the buyer also acquires its existing business. That way, the acquiring company gains market share without doing the hard work involved in earning new business and at the same time eliminates competition. The final reason for strategic acquisitions is to improve operational efficiency in the overall business or in a specific segment such as supplies or marketing. For example, one company can acquire its supplier and with that, reduce its costs by the margin the supplier made, boosting supply chain efficiency. For close to a decade, Julio M. Herrera Velutini has served as the head of an international bank based in Puerto Rico. Drawing on his significant banking experience, Julio Herrera Velutini manages the bank’s general operations, including customer relations. Banks need to cultivate excellent customer relationships to survive ever-increasing industry competition. Doing this requires banks to first understand the challenges of building phenomenal customer relationships and the opportunities they have to circumvent these challenges. Providing multiple product and service offerings is one such challenge. Banks today offer a diverse range of products and services, and they can have a savings department, a credit department, and an insurance offshoot. The banks’ customers pick up the cue and enroll for multiple services. For example, an individual client can keep savings in the same bank that offers him or her mortgage financing, while a business can bank with the same bank that provides it with asset financing and capital market solutions. For the bank, integrating the information of each client across the board can be an operational challenge. Personalization is how a bank gets around this obstacle. It involves sharing customer data across departments in order to build a single profile for each client. Not only does this enable the bank to accurately determine current risk exposure, it allows it to provide personalized services to every client, rather than have them served by multiple departments independently of one another. Personalized data can also be leveraged to come up with unique service packages for customers, boosting engagement and loyalty. A banking professional, Julio M. Herrera Velutini is the chairman of an international online bank based in Puerto Rico. Throughout his career as a banker, Julio Herrera Velutini has recognized the importance of establishing long-term strategy for his businesses. Every business owner needs to have a strategy to work toward long-term business operations. A good starting point is the business’ value proposition. What strengths set the business apart from the competition? What added value does the business offer customers? For example, some restaurants position themselves as the healthiest alternative, while others position themselves as the most affordable. Identify your unique business proposition and build your business operation and marketing around it. Next, identify your ideal customers and solve their problems. If your restaurant’s value proposition is the fastest service time, your ideal clients could include businesspeople with little time to dine. Build your business around exemplarily solving the specific problem this customer has. Once you’ve established a loyal customer base, you want to keep them. Recognize good customers through loyalty programs, perks, discounts, or first consideration on new products. Another key consideration is the business’ revenue. What are the business’ current revenue streams? Are there other additional streams that are within reach, sustainable, and profitable? Finally, hire the right people and keep them motivated. Involve them in decision making, encourage them to innovate, and make sure they are all on the same page. With a family involved in banking in Venezuela for more than a century, Julio M. Herrera Velutini serves as chairman of the board of a digitally focused banking institution in Puerto Rico. Part of Julio Herrera Velutini’s mission in his current role is to aid small businesses in Venezuela and beyond. Running a small business in Venezuela has become increasingly difficult in recent years, with some experts suggesting that running a business is more challenging in Venezuela than in Syria. The massive 700 percent inflation rate, along with food shortages during the recession, pose major challenges to local businesses. Some small business owners struggle with armed gangs demanding a “tax” in certain neighborhoods, while other businesses resort to smuggling materials across the border. Additionally, Venezuela relies largely on the oil industry, which has been steadily shrinking and is projected to keep doing so. Many businesses have left the country, but some remain rooted in their homeland, hoping to help support the struggling economy. Some entrepreneurs in Venezuela consider their work an act of political resistance in a time of governmental uncertainty. An experienced international banker, Julio M. Herrera Velutini leverages years of experience to serve as chairman of a prominent Puerto Rico-based financial entity. Through his company, Julio Herrera Velutini strives to provide better financing and crediting options to Latin American communities by promoting microfinance. As its name suggests, microfinance involves the allotment of small-scale loans. Most of these “microloans” do not award more than a few hundred dollars at a time. Most commonly, microfinance entities conduct most of their work within developing nations whose residents often need basic monetary assistance. Typically, microfinance caters to two main groups: individuals and small business owners. For those who are unemployed or otherwise make insufficient funds for living expenses, these services provide them with a means of turning their lives around financially. These individuals can use their microloans for everything from groceries to housing. Otherwise, microfinance entities commonly work with small business owners that lack the necessary capital to obtain loans from their banking institutions. With this funding, these entrepreneurs are better equipped to invest much-needed funding into their businesses. In all cases, microloans come with interest rates comparable to those of traditional loans. They are also similar to standard loans in that their loan terms obligate recipients to make repayments on a set schedule. Hailing from a family with more than a century of banking experience, Julio M. Herrera Velutini heads one of Venezuela’s largest banks. To achieve success in his work, Julio Herrera Velutini must stay current with banking trends, such as the increasing shift toward mobile banking. Mobile banking offers several benefits to consumers, including: 1. Multiple access points. Via mobile banking, consumers can access their account details in a number of ways, including texts, Internet browsers, and mobile applications. As such, mobile banking offers a dynamic approach to account access that allows consumers to access information in their preferred manner. 2. Paperless banking. Environmentally conscious consumers often support mobile banking since it allows them to access statements and important information without the need for paper documentation. 3. 24-hour access. Prior to the introduction of Internet and mobile banking, consumers could access banking services only during business hours. Mobile banking offers further benefits over desktop-based Internet banking because mobile banking allows account access no matter where the consumer is. Chairman of an international bank, Julio M. Herrera Velutini is a banking executive with a 120 year family history in banking. It is important for a legacy holder such as Julio M. Herrera Velutini to put extra effort into maintaining his impression on world banking. Recently, he initiated an agreement with MicroCapital to grow the microfinance sector in Costa Rica by offering small loans. This project is geared towards people with limited or no access to financial services. Typically, the financial services are provided to small businesses to help them grow their businesses, provide jobs, and, ultimately, improve the Costa Rican economy. Not just loans, the services include savings accounts, credit cards, money transfers, and micro-insurance. Costa Rica has steadily expanded its economy and, as a result, it has one of the lowest poverty rates in Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Velutini's foundation and MicroCapital help bridge the gap in inequality of the Costa Rican people by helping low-income business owners receive the same benefits as wealthy and middle-income earners. With family ties to Venezuela’s banking system, Julio M. Herrera Velutini serves as the chairman of an international bank with offices in Florida and headquarters in Puerto Rico. Julio Herrera Velutini stays current on topics in the banking industry by monitoring trends and developments in the financial sector. According to analysts at Mintel, one trend that’s currently impacting financial institutions is the growing interest in “robo-advice,” or wealth management advice provided online and based on algorithms instead of personal information. Mintel forecasts that robo-advising will become increasingly popular, especially among young people whose assets don’t justify a personal financial advisor. In its Financial Services Trends 2016 report, Mintel found that 45 percent of millennials already believe that robo-advice is on par with counsel from a human advisor. By 2020, Mintel expects that the top robo-advisors will be managing more than $2 trillion in assets. Mintel suggests banking providers capitalize on millennials’ comfort with robo-advice by beginning to introduce automated operations, such as cross-selling and onboarding processes. |
AuthorMr. Velutini has experience with both established banks and young banks. S Archives
December 2017
Categories
All
|