Personal finance
Plata Clara — personal finance in Colombia, explained clearly
Clear personal finance guides for Colombia — usury rate, effective annual rate, credit score, and savings — with official figures, no sales pitch.
Financial terms are designed to sound complicated: effective annual rate, current banking interest rate, usury rate. But understanding them isn't hard — it just takes someone willing to explain them without the runaround. That's what Plata Clara does: short guides, with real, up-to-date Colombian figures, and no financial product to sell you.
Plata Clara started as the English-language counterpart to a Spanish-language site built for Colombian readers, and it exists for a specific audience: English speakers — expats, newcomers, remote workers, or family abroad — trying to make sense of how money actually works in Colombia. Credit cards, savings certificates, inflation, and interest rates behave differently here than in the US, the UK, or anywhere else, and most English-language explanations either don't exist or get the local details wrong.
Every guide on this site sources its numbers from an official Colombian institution — the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (the financial regulator), the Banco de la República (the central bank), or DANE (the national statistics department) — and states the date those numbers were published, because in Colombia several of them (the usury rate, the DTF) change every month or every week. A figure without a date is close to useless here.
We don't try to replace your bank, an accountant, or a certified financial advisor, and we're not trying to sell you a loan, a card, or an investment product either. What we do is fill the gap before those conversations happen: explaining what a term like tasa efectiva anual or fecha de corte actually means, what a specific official number is (and isn't), and where in a contract or a statement to look for it, so you walk into that conversation already understanding the basics instead of nodding along.
All guides
BudgetingHow to build a personal budget (the 50/30/20 method and alternatives)What the 50/30/20 method is for budgeting your income, what other methods exist, and how to choose a general framework for organizing your finances.
CreditHow your credit card works: statement dates, limit, and minimum paymentWhat the statement closing date, payment due date, minimum payment, and credit limit mean on a Colombian credit card, and how they affect your score.CreditConsumer credit vs. free-investment loans: the real differencesHow consumer credit and free-investment loans differ in Colombia, and what to check before choosing one.
SavingsEmergency fund: how much to save and where to keep itHow much money you should keep in an emergency fund in Colombia, where to keep it so it doesn't lose value, and how to start with nothing saved.CreditHow your credit score works in ColombiaWhat a credit score is in Colombia, what factors move it, how to check it for free, and the most common myths about credit bureaus.CreditWhat the DTF is and what it's used forWhat the DTF rate is in Colombia, who calculates it, what it's used for as a reference in loans and CDTs, and its current value.BudgetingWhat the IPC is and how inflation affects youWhat Colombia's IPC measures, who calculates it, the latest DANE figure, and how inflation relates to your purchasing power.SavingsWhat a CDT is and how it worksWhat a Certificado de Depósito a Término (CDT) is in Colombia, typical terms, how the return is calculated, and what happens if you withdraw early.CreditUsury rate in Colombia: what it is and how much it is todayWhat Colombia's usury rate is, how the Superintendencia Financiera calculates it monthly, and why it caps the legal interest on cards and loans.CreditEffective annual rate (E.A.): what it means and how it's calculatedWhat the effective annual rate means on a Colombian loan, how it differs from the nominal rate, and how to use it to actually compare loans.