Welcome back to the TWIF podcast! We've got a streak of great interviews for you this fall, heading to Mexico today for a conversation with the Baubap co-founders.

Baubap is Latin America's first AI-powered, credit-focused bank.

Baubap was ahead of the AI boom, developing an AI-driven credit underwriting model since 2019. This early adoption allowed them to build a scalable model that consistently improves with data. The company has issued over 8 million loans and served 2 million customers, while maintaining profitability (and 18% month-over-month growth over the past five years) and a $100 million+ revenue run-rate.

Co-Founder and CEO Roberto Salcedo has 12 years of experience as a top-performing banker for non-banking lenders, including being ranked in the top 1% of corporate bankers at HSBC. Roberto also led the largest structured finance deal at Invex.

Conrad Wilkinson is the Chief Risk Officer and Co-Founder of Baubap, where he spearheaded the development of their AI-driven risk models. With 8 years of experience as a machine learning engineer, Conrad's expertise has taken Baubap's AI infrastructure from scratch to scaling over 8 million loans, positioning the company as a leader in leveraging AI for financial services.

🎧 Talking LatAm Fintech, AI, and Lending with BauBap Co-Founders Roberto Salcedo & Conrad Wilkinson by This Week in Fintech’s Podcast

Welcome back to the TWIF podcast! We’ve got a streak of great interviews for you this fall, heading to Mexico today for a conversation with the Baubap co-founders. Baubap is Latin America’s first AI-powered, credit-focused bank. Baubap was ahead of the AI boom, developing an AI-driven credit underwriting model since 2019. This early adoption allowed them to build a scalable model that consistently improves with data. The company has issued over 8 million loans and served 2 million customers, while maintaining profitability (and 18% month-over-month growth over the past five years) and a $100 million+ revenue run-rate.

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Talking LatAm Fintech, AI, and Lending with BauBap Co-Founders Roberto Salcedo & Conrad Wilkinson

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Summary

Roberto, CEO and co-founder of Baobab, and Conrad, CTO and co-founder, discussed their AI-driven lending platform, which has scaled to serve 2 million customers and generate $100 million in revenue. Baobab, which started in 2019, uses AI to underwrite loans for underserved customers, including 50% informal workers. They highlighted their unique AI models, which process alternative data and reduce default rates. The company aims to expand its AI lending platform as a service to other emerging markets. Baobab's rapid growth includes processing 800,000 loan applications monthly, with plans to double revenue and introduce new products in Mexico.

Transcript

Nik Milanovic  00:03

Thank you everyone for coming back and joining us for This Week in Fintech’s Podcast. I'm really excited about the guests that we have on board with us. Today, we're going to take a deep dive into the Latin American credit market with our friends, Roberto and Conrad from Baubap. I'm going to turn it over now to our guests, because we're going to spend a lot of time today talking about the use of AI in FinTech in Latin America. So Roberto, please take it away. We'd love to get your quick introduction.