Hola amig@s fintech,

Happy Semana Santa (aka Holy or Easter Week). 🐰 Enjoy the long weekend and this week’s front page of Latam fintech news below.

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💛 Until next weekend. Até a próxima! - Daniela

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📊 Stat of the Week

📖  Read of the Week

The Fintech Global Vision 2023 report includes insights on investment trends, emerging technologies, and regulatory developments in the fintech sector across different regions of the world.

🦉 Tweets of the Week

💸 Venture financing

No equity or debt funding news announced this week 👀

💰 Venture funds

🌐Kaszek Ventures announced two new funds with $975 million in capital to deploy in Latam startups. Kaszek Ventures VI will invest $540 million in early-stage startups up to Series B, while Kaszek Ventures Opportunity-III has $435 million allocated for later-stage investments in the firm’s portfolio companies with checks ranging between $10 to $50 million each.  This is in addition to $1 billion raised in 2021 across two funds: $275 million for early-stage investing and $525 million for an opportunity fund.

☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🇲🇽FEMSA, the Mexican multinational beverage and retail company, announced the acquisition of NetPay, the Mexican payment aggregator focused on MSMEs. FEMSA has held shares in Netpay since 2019 and is part of its digital financial services strategy which includes Spin by OXXO  Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

🇲🇽Walmart Mexico announced the acquisition of Trafalgar, one of the first fintechs authorized to operate in Mexico as a depository institution (IFPE). The acquisition is part of Walmart's fintech strategy, which is based on its Cashi app, used by Walmart and Bodega Aurrera stores in Mexico. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

🚀 Product Launches & Partnerships

💻 Fintech

🇨🇴Littio, the Colombian crypto platform, announced it now offers a Euro-pegged stablecoin, EUROC. The startup also offers a USDC-denominated debit card through Mastercard.

🇲🇽 TruBit, the Mexico-based digital wallet, announced a partnership with Mercado Pago to enable TruBit’s users to purchase more than 80 cryptocurrencies via Mercado Pago or Mercado Crédito in Mexico.  At the same time, SME clients of Mercado Pago can invest in crypto assets via TruBit Gana+.

🇦🇷 Binance launched a fiat ramp allowing users to exchange cryptocurrencies for Argentine pesos directly from their Binance wallet as well as depositing and withdrawing via bank transfers.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🇨🇱 Mastercard and Klap announced a partnership to launch Tap On Phone technology in Chile.  This allows MSMEs to use mobile phones as payment terminals (POS).  The Android app allows merchants to accept contactless card payments via NFC technology in a country where 58% of the population has used contactless payments in the past year and has more than 33 million cell phones.

🇧🇷 BTG Pactual, the Brazil-based investment bank, announced it will launch its first stablecoin, called BTG Dol, on its crypto platform Mynt. The stablecoin will be backed by the US dollar on a 1:1 parity and will enable users to dollarize their portfolios safely. BTG Pactual will handle the custodial responsibilities of BTG Dol and manage its backing, security, due diligence, and money laundering prevention.

📜 Policy

🇲🇽The Mexican banking commission (CNBV) authorized six new fintech companies to operate under the Fintech Law. Four of those are crowdfunding institutions (IFC): Capital Funding Lab, Expansive, Ucombi, and Inverteca. The other two received their licenses as depository institutions (IFPE): Higo and Sylon.

🇲🇽The CNBV approved Mexican neobank Klar's purchase of Sefia, a SOFIPO or licensed microfinance entity which can receive deposits and offer savings products.  This is in addition to Klar having received its IFPE or fintech license in February.  

🇨🇱The Central Bank of Chile (CBC) limited fintechs’ cross-border payments in the country. These operations had been challenged by credit card companies, who requested the opinion of the regulator. The CB said that to approve these transactions, a risk analysis would be required because payment service providers (PSP) and card operators are not properly authorized to conduct this activity in Chile.

📰 Other News

🌐 SoftBank's Latin America Funds remain bullish on the region as they still have $400 million to invest in new investments and existing portfolio companies, despite recording a loss of $5.8 billion in 4Q22. The funds have allocated $7.6 billion across more than 80 investments. SoftBank is optimistic about the opportunities in Latam and has a competitive edge over global investors with members of its investment team working in the region.

🌐 Bloomberg has developed a finance-focused AI model called BloombergGPT, which has been trained on a massive amount of financial data to support various natural language processing tasks within the financial industry. The aim is for BloombergGPT to revolutionize the finance industry by assisting with risk assessments, financial sentiment analysis, and potentially automating accounting and auditing tasks

🌐 Clara, the corporate expense management platform, announced Raquel Hernández and Youmna Harb as Director of Engineering and Country Manager for Clara Mexico, respectively. Tina Reich, former Chief Credit Officer of American Express, also joins Clara as an Advisor and Member of the Board of Directors.

📚 Deeper Reads

How embedded finance benefits both banks and sellers

How you invest your time is just as important as how you invest your money

Crypto could help save people in the US billions of dollars a year in remittance fees

Why Have Fintechs Become Essential In Latin America, and How Vulnerable Are They?

Fintech and Small Business Lending: Opportunities and Challenges for SMEs

Top 5 Marketing Strategies for FinTech

Made in Latam with 💛 by Elena, Lorena and Daniela.

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