**Abstract**

The banking sector is that sector of the modern economy that is primarily called upon to play the important role of intermediation between the surplus agents and the deficit agents. Based on this fact, this research presents and analyzes the behavior of banks in Colombia since 2002 and up to 2016 (15 years) through the application of data envelopment analysis, a nonparametric methodology of advanced linear programming, which generates a single efficiency indicator for each unit studied in each period, optimizing multiple resources (inputs) and multiple products (outputs). One aspect of the results shows that for the year 2014, 71% of the banks were efficient, this being the highest result within the period studied.

**Keywords:** Colombian banking sector, banking efficiency, data envelopment analysis, efficiency measurement, relative efficiency
