LATAM Fintech | 2021 #15
Hi, there! Welcome back to another LATAM Fintech Newsletter. In this newsletter, I cover all the major news related to LATAM Fintech. Thank you for subscribing!
The interview recommendation of the week belongs to Efma and their Q&A with João Vitor Menin, CEO at Brazilian neobank Inter.
João discusses how their marketplace and its associated partnerships are at the heart of their offering.
The success of our customer acquisition is based on our value proposition - a very simple offering that puts the customer at the center and is sustained by a broad range of financial and non-financial services.
👉 Read more here.
Also, Banco Inter already has more than 13 million customers who have subscribed to the digital account.
More than one million Banco Inter customers (BIDI11) will have the credit card limit extended. With this, the financial institution intends to democratize access to the card and, to that end, R$ 3 billion will be released in credit limits for customers.
👉 Read more here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF THE LATEST NEWS IN LATAM
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Brazilian bank Nubank has added support for Apple Pay to its debit and credit cards, with Purple, Ultraviolet, and PJ accounts all supported.
First announced via a blog post and picked up by 9to5Mac, the move means that customers of Nubank can now make contactless payments using their iPhones and Apple Watches for the first time.
Nubank says that more than 80% of the machines in Brazil already support Apple Pay.
👉 Read more here.
INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Brazilian Nubank thinks it could be worth up to US$100 billion for Nasdaq debut in late 2021. Link here.
⭐️ Also, The big news Related to PIX announced by Nubank, is that from now on, bank customers who have a personal account (PF) or PJ (corporate entity) can schedule Transaction Immediately using any method pixEither by key or QR code. Link here.
⭐️ Brazil’s central bank has postponed the third phase of Open Banking at the request of financial institutions and fintechs. Link here.
⭐️ Brazilian digital bank Banco Inter SA has reached an agreement to acquire U.S-based financial startup USEND, making its first international inroads, a securities filing showed on Friday. Link here.
⭐️ Nubank and the pet products company Zee.Dog launched, this Thursday (26), a rubber card with the color and design of the digital bank made to be bitten by their customers’ pet dogs. Link here.
⭐️ Loft, one of the largest unicorns in the country dedicated to the real estate market and one of the leaders in the purchase and sale of real estate, is accelerating its growth plan. The company announced the acquisition of CrediHome. Link here.
BRAZIL
This week’s launch of Open Banking Excellence’s presence in Brazil could play a key role in the country’s emergence as an open banking stalwart, two executives from instant payments infrastructure provider Volt believe.
CEO Tom Greenwood said Banco Central do Brazil has gone farther than its European counterparts by devising a framework that both envisions open banking and provides a roadmap for its implementation.
“The four-phased approach will transform data sharing between banks (phase one), before addressing consumer privacy rights (phase two), the ability to initiate transactions (phase three), and finally the application of this to other verticals within financial services, such as credit, insurance and investments (phase four),” Greenwood explained.
👉 Read more here.
Tuna is on a mission to “fine-tune” the payments space in Latin America and has raised two seed rounds totaling $3 million, led by Canary and by Atlantico. Alex Tabor, Paul Ascher, and Juan Pascual met each other on the engineering team of Peixe Urbano, a company Tabor co-founded and he referred to as a “Groupon for Brazil.” While there, they came up with a way to use A/B testing to create a way of dealing with payments in different markets.
👉 Read more here.
Nubank has released a pre-approved credit line with a reduced rate and discount condition if the customer wants to pay off the credit in advance. The loan application can be made directly through the Nubank application, where the customer can check the amount that will have been approved, the information, and the interest rate on the loan.
👉 Read more here.
Mercado Livre, Latin America’s leading e-commerce and financial services technology company, has announced its acquisition of Kangu, a Brazilian logistics company that operates in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Mercado Livre, which was already a strategic partner, expanded its participation with the acquisition of the entire company.
👉 Read more here.
Brazil has about 12.7 million individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEIs) – and several startups are looking to serve this slice of customers. The latest startup in the industry to capture an ambitious round, with heavy investors, is Cora. The FinTech received a series B investment of more than R$600 million (US$116 million) to become the bank for small businesses that earn up to R$4.8 million per year.
👉 Read more here.
MEXICO
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, today announced its partnership with Credijusto, the leading technology-enabled small business lender in Mexico, to provide frictionless credit solutions for the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), through the forthcoming launch of the Covalto American Express credit card.
On a mission to change the accessibility and usage of contemporary commercial credit, Covalto will be available to businesses throughout Mexico in 2021.
👉 Read more here.
Flink México, a Mexico City-based neobroker, has raised $57 million in a Series B round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The financing comes just over six months after Flink raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Accel.
👉 Read more here.
COLOMBIA
Superfinanciera has enabled the controlled test space to promote technological innovation in the financial system, according to the official press release.
Through this controlled space, supervised entities and other companies will be able to test innovative technological developments for up to two years.
👉 Read more here.
EL SALVADOR
A course to train 100 programmers will be launched in Salvador by Nubank. The initiative is from NuLab Salvador, an innovation and technology center launched by the bank in the capital of Bahia, which promises to train classes by the second quarter of 2022.
👉 Read more here.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS:
Provenir, a global leader in data analytics software and risk decisioning, has appointed José Luis Vargas-Favero as its new executive vice president and general manager for Latin America. In his new role, Vargas-Favero will be responsible for leading Provenir's ambitious expansion plans to triple its footprint in the region by the end of 2021. Link here.
Nubank announces the third edition of “Yes, She Codes,” a program for hiring women working in the field of software engineering. Until September 8th, women who work with software development will be able to enroll in the new edition of the project. Link here.
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This ends my weekly LATAM fintech newsletter. Thank you for reading to the end! If you liked it, I invite you to like, share and/or leave a comment below.
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Let me know if there are any questions or news/insights worth mentioning in next week's newsletter. Until the next!
Regards,
Marcel van Oost
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