REPORT
The adoption of digital payments and the number of people who are doing their shopping online has accelerated rapidly in Latin America this year.
A study by PYMNTS, done in conjunction with digital payment platform Kushki, found that in one five-month period in 2021, just over 40 million consumers became banked for the first time.
The growth of eCommerce and digital payments is largely due to cultural change, said Kushki Vice President of Payment Partnerships Andy Obando in an interview with PYMNTS.
He explained that while Latin Americans have traditionally been wary of accepting credit cards and debit cards, that is no longer the case. With people’s fears of catching COVID-19 and the emergence of so-called neobanks, which have made digital banking services more accessible, cash is no longer nearly as popular as it once was.
👉 Read the full PYMNTS article here.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
In June, Accountfy – the corporate financial management SaaS platform – announced a $4.5 million complement to the Series A round.
Accountfy is a platform in the SaaS model that automates financial statements (DRE, cash flow, and balance sheet). In practice, the startup's solution solves the pain of the three main areas of the companies' finance department: controllership, FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis), and treasury.
With the funding round, the intention was to start expanding the business to the United States. But the project has not yet gone ahead.
The main challenge is to build a local team, amidst the dispute for talent. “Wages in the US are getting higher. We set up the office, we are already selling there, but the biggest challenge is having people”, recognizes co-founder and CEO, Goldwasser Neto – known as Gold.
👉 Read the full LATAMFintech Hub article here.
📰 ARTICLE
Brazil is home to several of the largest unicorns in Latin America, such as Nubank, C6 Bank, Nuvemshop, Wildlife Studios, and Loft, and is one of the most dynamic countries for entrepreneurship on the continent - with the city of São Paulo being one of its main hubs.
The country also leads the ranking of the most active countries in the region for M&As, with 2,222 operations to November of this year (a 51% increase over the period), and with a 145% increase in the amount of capital mobilized, totaling $86.74 billion.
According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the percentage of persons between the ages of 18 and 64 with a startup was 13.4% in Brazil in 2020, one of the largest proportions in Latin America.
👉 Read the full Bloomberglinea article here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
☕️ REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Credix, a new fintech challenger on the Blockchain space, announced that it has raised a $2.5 million Seed round from DRW Cumberland and ParaFi Capital. Link here.
⭐️ Brazilian unicorn Nubank has become Latin America’s most valuable bank, at US$41.5bn, to be listed on the NYSE following its December 8 IPO, when the neobank raised US$2.6bn. Link here.
⭐️ Brazil's central bank has put the brakes on tougher regulations for the burgeoning fintech industry, withdrawing a draft proposal that had been set to be voted on last month by the government's top financial policy-making body. Link here.
MEXICO
VIP$ Coin (VIP$), the asset-backed Blockchain Cryptocurrency, has opened conversations with the Mexican Government to discuss the prospect of bolstering its economy with a decentralized currency.
The asset-backed currency is uniquely placed to integrate with existing economies, trading with traditional fiat currencies due to its vast natural resource asset cap that maintains and stabilizes its value, like that of traditional economic gold reserves.
Backed by $3.6T worth of land, energy, and other mineral assets1, VIP$ Coin will enable Governments, institutions, or indexes to peg directly to – or trade their fiat currencies on – foreign or domestic exchanges.
👉 Read the full The Fintech Times article here.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.