Hola amig@s fintech,
This week, a few stories keep circling back to loyalty. A survey shows 9 in 10 SMEs across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia would switch cross-border payment providers given the chance, putting $16 billion of a $23 billion market in play. But there are long-term commitments too, like Nubank betting $4.2 billion on staying for the long haul as a full bank in Mexico, or Equifax paying $750 million to hold Mexico's credit data conversation from now on. And then there's Pix, the one everybody wants to be with: it moved $6.3 trillion in 2025, up 33.6% year over year, and remains Brazil's clear favorite.
The full edition has all this and more. Let's get into it.
~Vivi
🟨Editor’s Picks
Cross-border payments are becoming the first fault line in LatAm's SME banking relationships
Mastercard and FXC Intelligence surveyed SMEs across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia and found 9 in 10 would consider switching cross-border payment providers, putting roughly 70% of their cross-border volume in play, a market the report values at $23 billion a year. The driver isn't price: 1 in 9 payments needs manual correction, and problem transactions can eat up to 3.5 hours of staff time, on top of the uncertainty of not knowing when money will land or what gets deducted along the way. SMEs are quietly rerouting cross-border payments corridor by corridor, meaning banks can stay "primary" in name while losing real wallet share.
Traditional banks aren't dying, they're becoming the infrastructure fintechs build on top of
On the podcast Mentes Excepcionales, host Ángel Mendoza talks with Maximiliano Fuentes, "El Gordo Fintec," about how fintechs are outpacing banks on agility and user experience, and why banks are now adopting those same technologies rather than resisting them. Fuentes' bet: the future isn't fintech replacing banks, it's banking infrastructure staying essential while becoming more tightly integrated with fintech products. For LatAm, it reframes the real fight as being over who controls that connection point, not who wins outright.
The fintech conversation continues in our community chats.
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🟨 This Week’s Key Moves
| Fundraising
🇨🇴 Addi, the Colombian buy now, pay later platform, raised $85 million in a Series D led by Citius and BTG Pactual, with participation from GIC and Monashees. The capital will accelerate Addi's evolution from BNPL into a broader banking, payments, and commerce platform across Latin America.
🇧🇷 Jota, the AI-powered conversational banking platform that lets entrepreneurs manage payments and finances through WhatsApp, raised $30 million in a Series A led by Haun Ventures, with HOF Capital, Alter Global, and Greyhound Capital participating.
🇲🇽 Baubap, the Mexican digital microlending platform, secured a $23 million credit facility from BBVA Spark and SixPoint Capital, strengthening its lending capacity to scale access to credit for underserved consumers.
🇲🇽 Aviva, the Mexican fintech that provides credit to underserved consumers and small businesses through physical kiosks and video-based onboarding, raised $18 million in a Series A led by Valor Capital Group, with participation from IDB Lab, Caravela Capital, Endeavor Forward, and existing investors Wollef, Ignia, Krealo, and Newtopia.
🇨🇱 Blanco, the Chilean AI-powered digital factoring platform for small and medium-sized businesses, raised a $5.2 million seed round led by Krealo, the corporate venture capital arm of Grupo Credicorp. Blanco automates invoice financing and working capital for SMEs through WhatsApp.
| Products & Partnerships
🇲🇽 Nubank formalized a $4.2 billion investment plan for Mexico through 2030, with $2.5 billion earmarked for the next four years to scale its digital banking infrastructure as it completes its transition from a SOFIPO to a fully licensed commercial bank.
🇲🇽 Equifax entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Círculo de Crédito for $750 million, adding cloud-native credit data and AI capabilities to expand digital lending infrastructure in Mexico.
🇦🇷 Cocos, the Argentine fintech, finalized its $20 million acquisition of 100% of Banco Voii, giving the platform a full banking license and setting up its shift from brokerage to bank.
🇨🇴 Banco Santander Colombia became the first corporate bank to integrate into Colombia's Bre-B instant payment ecosystem, through an alliance with CCO Credibanco enabling real-time payment collection for corporate clients.
🇧🇷 Nubank and Amazon Brazil expanded their partnership, giving NuPay a full checkout presence on Amazon.com.br with debit, credit, and installment options timed to Amazon Prime Day.
🇲🇽 Banco Plata initiated the nationwide deployment of 300 smart ATMs, giving the digital-only bank its first physical touchpoints for cash-reliant customers.
| Policy
🇧🇷 Brazilian businesses face an August 3, 2026 deadline to add fields for Brazil's two new consolidated taxes, IBS and CBS, to their electronic invoicing systems, part of the country's broader tax reform replacing five old taxes with two.
🇲🇽 Mexico's CNBV introduced a Basel III-style liquidity rule for Sofipos, small deposit-taking lenders that serve underbanked customers, phasing in an 80% liquid-assets coverage requirement in 2028 up to 100% by 2030.
🇵🇪 Peru's SBS granted organizational authorization, the first of two approvals needed, to Lima del Sol EEDE, a new electronic money issuer tied to Argentine fintech Grupo Lemon, paving the way for Lemon to run its own regulated wallet infrastructure in Peru instead of relying on a third party.
🟨 On our Radar
Pix, the instant payment system run by Brazil's Central Bank, processed roughly $6.3 trillion in transactions during 2025, a 33.6% jump over 2024 across nearly 80 billion transactions. The system now counts close to 179 million users, and on its busiest day in December it handled over 313 million transactions in a single 24-hour span. Pix has overtaken cash, cards, and bank transfers as Brazil's leading payment method, helped by being free for individuals, instant, and available around the clock. As new features like installment payments roll out, the bigger question for the Central Bank is whether it can keep Pix fast and free while containing the fraud and cyberattacks that come with handling that much of the economy's money.
BancoEstado and Mujeres del Pacífico formalized a strategic alliance to help women-led businesses in Chile optimize cash flow and financial management, rolling out financial education, digital tools, and specialized support. The partnership builds on years of joint training work between the two organizations under BancoEstado's CreceMujer program. Cash flow management is a deliberate entry point: access to credit remains one of the biggest obstacles for small women-led businesses in Chile, and stronger cash management is often the first step toward qualifying for it.
TWIF Latin America editorial team
Elena, Head of New Technologies at Afirme Financial Group
Carlos, ESG Analyst at CFECapital
Editor-in-Chief: Vivi, Strategic Communications and Public Affairs Advisor
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