Visa's Visionary Venture: Pismo's Power Play in Fintech's Future
Exploring Mercado Libre's expansion in Mexico, Circle and Nubank's alliance in Brazil, and fintech's explosive growth in Colombia, marking an innovative era in Latin America's financial industry.
Welcome to our weekly newsletter covering the latest news and trends in the Latin American Fintech startup scene.
Visa's acquisition of Pismo is now official
The General Superintendence of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (Cade) of Brazil has given the green light to acquire fintech Pismo by Visa in a deal valued at USD $1 billion. This decision, announced at the end of June this year, has been established as a strategic move in the growing Latin American fintech market.
The general superintendent of Cade, Alexandre Barreto, endorsed the purchase by accepting the arguments presented by Visa. The company assured the transaction would not compromise market competition, as the acquired assets complement its current operations. The approval process began at the end of August and has successfully concluded with this resolution.
“Pismo’s solutions facilitate the processing of payment modalities such as those of Visa and Mastercard”, stated Visa in a communication to Cade, highlighting the synergy between the operations of both companies.
Pismo’s cloud-based platform manages over 70 million accounts and handles transactions worth over USD $200 billion annually. This acquisition uniquely positions Visa to offer fundamental banking capabilities and processing services for debit, prepaid, credit, and commercial card issuers through native cloud APIs.
Vía Contxto
Quick News
Somapay and Fortes Tecnologia launch FortesPay in Brazil
Somapay, a fintech company based in Ceará specializing in payroll automation, announced a partnership with Fortes Tecnologia, a software accounting company located in Fortaleza (CE).
The goal is to integrate payroll management by Human Resources and provide banking solutions to employees.
Fortes‘ solutions have handled processing and closing employee payments, transmitted the information to the government through eSocial, and offered business management tools.
In addition to facilitating the free opening of digital accounts with SomaPay, the integration offers a variety of additional services, such as payroll loans, insurance, transfers, and access to a marketplace with popular apps like Uber, iFood, Spotify, and Netflix, as well as discounts at pharmacies. (Contxto)
Does Walmart affect financial inclusion in Chile?
Tenpo has fully launched an aggressive strategy against Walmart, accusing the American chain of not allowing the use of prepaid cards in its physical stores and e-commerce.
The digital platform, with over 2.3 million users, accuses the American chain of causing unjustified disruption in the payment industry in Chile, affecting financial inclusion in the South American country.
Walmart and Falabella.com are the only major retailers not accepting this card type.
Since 2016, prepaid cards have been regulated in Chile by the Financial Market Commission and the Central Bank of Chile. (Contxto)
Itaú Unibanco launches new cryptocurrency trading service
Itaú Unibanco has launched a new cryptocurrency trading service, positioning itself as a pioneer in the sector within Latin America.
This move could catalyze a greater integration of cryptocurrencies in conventional financial services in Brazil and across the region.
The Brazilian bank’s foray into the cryptocurrency market begins with the offering of Bitcoin and Ether, the two most globally recognized cryptos.
The brokerage and investment firm XP closed its cryptocurrency services, while PicPay, part of the J&F conglomerate that also controls JBS, cited regulatory uncertainties as the reason for its withdrawal. (Contxto)
Jeeves 2.0 is the new stage of fintech to conquer Brazil
Jeeves is entering a new expansion phase, with Brazil at the forefront of its priorities.
Jeeves 2.0 will bring new features crucial for the company’s current customer base, mainly medium and large enterprises.
The new phase involves implementing layers of management and banking functionalities, all from a cross-border perspective
Jeeves plans to offer the ability to view accounts from different countries in one place through its platform. (Contxto)
Circle and Nubank forge alliance to boost adoption of USDC Stablecoin in Brazil
Circle, the company known for developing and managing the stablecoin USDC, has announced a strategic alliance with Nubank, the largest neobank in Brazil.
This collaboration aims primarily to boost the adoption of USDC in Brazil, a country already distinguished in Latin America for its rapid growth in cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins.
In the last year, the volume of transactions made with Tether (USDT), another popular stablecoin, represented almost 80% of all cryptocurrency transfers in Brazil.
The integration of USDC into the Nubank platform not only opens the door to more local customers but, according to Thomaz Fortes, general director of Nubank Cripto, also offers opportunities to integrate Nubank Cripto with other available financial services. (Contxto)
Minka announces it will reach 100 million real-time transactions in Colombia by 2023
The 251% growth compared to 2022, and the 100 million transfers reached this year, according to data from the fintech Minka, show that real-time payments in Colombia have a promising future for the country 2024.
Through Transfiya, Minka has made it possible for transactions to be completed in less than 20 seconds.
ACH's Transfiya, unique in the country, was recognized by USAID as the Digi Award winner for developing a payment system that enables low-income groups to conduct real-time financial transactions.
Minka is currently building similar systems in the Dominican Republic and Peru. (LatamFintech)
Fintech is creating 26,000 jobs in Colombia
According to the 'Fintech Snapshot 2023-2' report, more than 20,000 jobs are generated in this sector in Colombia.
The report was unveiled during the 13th version of the Colombia 4.0 event.
According to Colombia Fintech's estimates, the sector generates 26,814 jobs in the country.
Around 45 percent of fintechs with between 20 and 249 employees have been in the Colombian market for between 6 and 20 years. (El Tiempo)
Mercado Libre to expand its credit offering in Mexico with the support of Citibank
Mercado Libre announced it will expand its credit offerings to SMEs in Mexico and Brazil.
The credit extension will be possible thanks to the recent investment of USD $466 million received by Mercado Pago.
From its credit subsidiary, the company reports that, during the third quarter of this year, its credit card business grew by 22.6% in Latin America, reaching US$3.4 billion in profits.
20% of total revenues are originated for sellers inside and outside the marketplace throughout the region. (Marketing4All)
Solvento closed USD $50 million investment
Solvento, the financial technology company developing payment and credit infrastructure for the Latin American freight transportation sector, announced today that it has closed a $50mdd credit facility with Lendable and a round led by Quona Capital.
The round also included Dynamo Ventures, Ironspring Ventures, Proeza Ventures, and Zenda VC participation.
Solvento Audita uses APIs to integrate into any existing software, capable of reading and detecting any document and validating, a process that is traditionally done manually, even by the largest shippers and brokers.
Some companies already seeing the effects of Solvento Audita include one of the world's largest shippers, Nestlé, and Latin America's largest last-mile logistics operator, 99 Minutes. (LatamFintech)
Tapi and Uttopia seal alliance to facilitate payment of services and account openings in dollars
Tapi, the Argentine startup that seeks to transform payment experiences in Latin America, joined forces with Uttopia to facilitate and strengthen its platform in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.
This alliance will allow Uttopia users to access service payments in the four countries, including water, gas, and electricity providers, educational establishments, prepaid medicine, and credit cards.
Another benefit of this agreement is the global payments without limits, where Utoppia users can pay for services in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico without the need to use multiple payment methods or multiple accounts. (iProUp)
Fintech Education
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Food for Thought
Empowering the Future: Redefining the Vision for Fintech in Latin America
Redefining the Vision of Fintech in LATAM with leading experts, including Ximena Azcuy, to analyze current trends, share success stories and challenges in the regional financial ecosystem, and explore the crucial role of innovation and technology.
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