LATAM Fintech | 2021 #6
Hi, there!
The podcast recommendation of the week belongs to Emerging Markets Today and their latest episode on mapping Brazil’s FinTech sector.
In this episode, host Ana Paula Picasso interviews Carlos Kazuo Missao, the director of the GFT Group in Brazil - one of the world's leading companies in digital transformation for the financial sector.
We talked about how the pandemic decreased the unbanked population, the success of challenger banks and digital wallets; also how the new instant payment solution by Brazilian Central Bank, called PIX, is revolutionizing payments in Brazil, a little about open banking, and much more.
👉 Listen here.
South and Central America’s financial services industry saw a drop of 6.67% in deal activity during Q1 2021, when compared to the last four-quarter average, according to GlobalData Plc’s deals database.
A total of 28 deals worth $995.22m were announced for the region during Q1 2021, against the last four-quarter average of 30.00 deals.
Of all the deal types, M&A saw the most activity in Q1 2021 with 14 deals, representing a 50% share for the region.
👉 Read more here.
Private companies around the world have been measuring against the unicorn threshold for decades.
Latin America has 16 unicorns, an impressive achievement when we consider that access to funding in the region is not as strong as other regions.
Looking at the funding history of Latin America, the fact that we produced unicorns before 2018 is astounding.
👉 Read more here.
The Latin America fintech a55, which provides solutions in the alternative lending space offering revenue-based financing, announced a combination of debt and equity US$35m investment.
The proceeds will be used to finance credit operations across the region, with a particular emphasis on Mexico, and the product and commercial expansion of the company.
👉 Read more here.
The B2B payments space has seen an explosion in demand, and investor interest, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses try to figure out how to pay each other digitally. The challenges become even more complex when dealing with cross-border payments.
Startups that were formed before the pandemic stand to benefit from the shift. One such startup, Tribal Credit, launched its beta in late 2019 to provide payment products for startups and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in emerging markets.
Tribal has raised a $34.3 round to help Startups and SMEs from Emerging Markets (Latin America) with payment, credit, and expense management.
👉 Read more here.
It’s no secret that the Brazilian banking system has been poised for disruption, considering the sector’s little attention to customer service and exorbitant fee structure that’s left most Brazilians unbanked, and alt.bank is just the latest company trying to take home a piece of the pie.
Following Nubank’s strategy of launching a bank with colors that are very un-bank-like, signaling that they do things differently, alt.bank similarly launched its first financial product in 2019 — a fluorescent-yellow debit card which the locals have endearingly dubbed, “o amarelinho,” meaning, “the little yellow card.”
Also, alt.bank, announced a $5.5 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures (USV).
👉 Read more here.
Mastercard cardholders in Brazil can send and receive money to and from friends and family through WhatsApp.
Mastercard debit cardholders with cards issued by Banco Inter, Banco Itaú, Nubank and Sicredi will be able to use the innovative P2P WhatsApp service.
The payments service on WhatsApp is enabled by Facebook Pay and processed by Facebook Pagamentos and Cielo.
The announcement comes after the Brazil Central Bank officially granted a Payment Initiator license to Facebook Pagamentos do Brasil Ltda and approved Mastercard's new transfer scheme. Additional banking partners are expected to join the program soon.
👉 Read more here.
Bitso, a regulated crypto exchange in Latin America, announced that it has raised $250 million in a Series C round of funding that values the company at $2.2 billion.
The news caught our attention for several reasons. For one, it comes just four months after the startup raised $62 million in a Series B round.
Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management co-led the round, which also included participation from Paradigm, BOND & Valor Capital Group, and existing backers QED Investors, Pantera Capital, and KASZEK.
👉 Read more here.
Before 2020, I used to travel around 50% of the time to all kinds of events and meet people in person all over the globe. I attended several FinTech events and had a great time networking. I'll still refer to 2020 as a "Virtual Year" when I reflect on it.
Sometimes I find myself really missing the hustle and bustle of physical events and the kind of networking that only a face-to-face meeting can provide.
👉 Read more here.
Sponsored Content: Fintech Meetup cuts straight to the most important part of an event: building connections. Sign up and meet with 1,000+ other knowledgeable & influential industry professionals.
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