Experts Warn About the Need for Financial Education in the Era of Fintech

The advancement of fintech has expanded access to credit, digital payments, and investments in Argentina, but it has also exposed an increasingly urgent challenge: improving users' financial education to avoid poorly understood debt decisions and strengthen the quality of the system. This was one of the central themes of the panel "Investment Under an Ethical Lens," held during the second day of the XX Congress of Economics and Management, organized by the Faculty of Economic Sciences.

The discussion comes at a time of strong expansion of the fintech ecosystem. Mariano Giraffa, Director of Payment Methods at the Argentine Chamber of Fintech, noted that the sector already includes more than 400 companies in the country and has significantly broadened access to financial services. According to him, more than 40 million people have a CBU or CVU, eight out of ten make payments through digital means, and more than 10 million currently have a fintech loan.

The diagnosis shared by the specialists was that technology will continue to reduce barriers to entry into the capital markets and credit, but that this massification alone is not enough. For growth to be sustainable, they warned, greater user knowledge, better credit assessments, and clearer communication from companies are needed.

Digital Credit and Delinquency

The panel was moderated by César Albornoz, Vice Dean of the Faculty, and also featured Martín Riera, Head of Sales at Addalítica, and Ana Laplace from Balanz Academy.

The speakers agreed that fintech has opened up possibilities that the traditional banking system did not offer, but they also acknowledged that financial education has become a central challenge in a context of increased use of virtual wallets and rising delinquency.

Riera, a specialist in digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and financial risk management, stated that delinquency cannot be explained solely by the expansion of wallets or fintech. It must also be analyzed from the economic capacity of individuals and their understanding of how credit works.

"When buying an electric toothbrush in 20 installments, there are people who do not think that they are paying five times more, but rather that they can buy it," he exemplified.

More Loans, but of Better Quality

One of the points of greatest consensus was that access to financing must be accompanied by clear information. For Giraffa, financial education cannot fall solely on the person taking out a loan, but must involve all actors in the system.

"Financial education must involve all actors involved. It should not fall solely on the person requesting the loan," he stated.

In this sense, he argued that Argentina needs to increase the volume of credit, but with better granting criteria. "There needs to be growth in the number of loans, but better ones, that is, to people who can pay them back and not just offering loans for the sake of offering them," he affirmed.

The warning points to a sensitive balance for the sector: to continue expanding access to financing without pushing users to levels of indebtedness that they cannot sustain afterward.

Investing is Not Just Saving in Dollars

The panel also addressed the growth of individuals investing in mutual funds and other capital market instruments.

Ana Laplace emphasized the importance of differentiating between savings and investments. According to her, saving in dollars does not necessarily equate to investing, so she recommended starting by defining objectives, time horizons, and risk profiles.

Among the available alternatives, she mentioned bonds, stocks, Cedears, ETFs, and mutual funds. Regarding the latter, she highlighted that they can serve as a simple entry point for users due to their liquidity and ease of access.

AI: Data, Governance, and Cultural Transformation

The second part of the meeting was dedicated to the impact of artificial intelligence on companies. The panel included Martin Sciarrillo, Executive Technology Strategist at Microsoft; Juan Pablo Mongini, Specialist Sales Leader AI & Cloud at AWS; Natalia Scaliter, Managing Director of Google Cloud; and Bárbara Michalla, AI Platform Sr Manager at Mercado Libre.

The discussion reached a clear consensus: AI should not be understood merely as a tool, but as a strategy for transforming processes, organizational culture, and generating value for the business.

Sciarrillo stated that "the true value of AI lies in redefining processes" and emphasized that digital transformation is, above all, a cultural challenge. It involves reviewing how work is done, how decisions are made, and which tasks can be redesigned.

Governance and Quality Data

Another key point was governance. Experts warned that the advancement of agent-based systems changes the type of responsibility that companies must assume. Unlike the early AI tools, where the final decision was more clearly in the hands of a person, agents can act with greater autonomy.

Therefore, companies will need to define what data these systems can use, what actions they can execute, and under what internal rules.

Data quality emerged as a prerequisite for any AI strategy. "AI is only as intelligent as the data it feeds on," stated Scaliter, who recommended first organizing the available information and then moving towards concrete and manageable use cases.

The panelists also suggested avoiding "all or nothing" approaches. Instead of implementing AI broadly, they recommended first identifying the main productivity and speed issues within each organization.

The New Talent Profile

The impact of AI on employment also permeated the conversation. The speakers agreed that technology does not eliminate the need for professionals but rather modifies the most valued skills.

Critical thinking, creativity, judgment, business understanding, the ability to redesign processes, and the skill to work with technology will become increasingly relevant competencies.

"AI will take action, and we will take judgment," proposed Mongini. In the same vein, Scaliter asserted that the professional differential will lie in knowing what to ask, evaluating the responses generated by AI, and determining whether what it produces truly adds value.

The opportunity, they emphasized, will not be reserved only for large companies. Scaliter highlighted the potential for SMEs, "which drive 90% of the economy," and for independent professionals who can help them optimize processes and improve productivity without the need to incorporate large structures.