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The Front Page of Fintech

The largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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Mexico Fintech Week is almost here | TWIF LatAm (01/18)

Mexico Fintech Week is almost here | TWIF LatAm (01/18)

Hola amig@s fintech,

Every spring, Mexico City turns purple as thousands of jacaranda trees bloom across town. Think of it as the city’s version of cherry blossom season. Streets pop with color, everyone stops, takes a pic… you get the vibe. 

This February, our Mexico team is bringing that same energy to Mexico Fintech Week, your backstage pass to the hottest names in fintech. Check out the events and sponsorship opportunities, along with market movements, featured reads, the podcast of the week, and the most important fintech news in today’s edition.

🩵We will see you back here next week!

~Vivi

Feedback?  Reach out to us anytime! This week it’s Elena on read, post, and podcast of the week, funding, exists, other news and deeper reads, Carlos on policy, and product launches and partnerships, and Vivi on editing.


| TWIF Community 

🗓️ Events

Produced and created by TWIF alongside partners and community leaders, Mexico Fintech Week is a community-driven platform for curated, in-person conversations bringing together founders, operators, investors, and builders shaping the region’s fintech ecosystem.

We’ll have the “it-boys” and “it-girls” of the industry, spilling the tea on payments, banking, lending, crypto, and financial infrastructure. And yes… drinks 🍸

Heads up: first come, first served. Exclusive vibes, private, stylish, and exactly the crowd you want to be with. This fills up fast.

So, bring your questions, curiosity, and a way to swap contacts 2026-style. Forget business cards. Get ready for insider stories and practical insights. 

Stay iconic. We'll see you in February.

Your MFW Team

🗣️ Channels


| Stat of the Week 

Source: Crunchbase
Startup funding in Latin America rebounded in 2025, with total venture investment rising 14.3 percent year over year to $4.1 billion, up from $3.6 billion in 2024. The recovery was led by early-stage funding, which reached $2.0 billion, while late-stage and growth rounds totaled $1.63 billion, signaling renewed activity after two years of contraction.

|  Read of the Week 

The report “2025 Global eCommerce: Payments & Fraud Report” by Visa, highlights that fraud and payment security remain major challenges for the digital economy. Nearly 90% of merchants report using advanced tools to prevent fraud and post-purchase misuse, yet 80% say they struggle to effectively leverage data across systems for fraud management. While adoption of AI and machine-learning tools is growing, merchants cite complexity, integration issues, and data quality as major barriers, highlighting the gap between fraud sophistication and merchant{s ability to respond at scale. 

| Post of the Week 

| Podcast of the Week 

This episode looks at a range of fintech and adjacent stories, including Kontigo, a stablecoin startup dealing with deplatforming, sanctions exposure, and a recent hack; Givefront, which focuses on spend management for nonprofits navigating IRS and grant compliance; Beycome, a real estate platform applying AI and flat-fee pricing in home transactions; and Cash App, where the discussion centers on recent product updates and feature expansion.


| Venture Financing 

💰 Equity

🇧🇷 Magie, the Brazilian company offering AI-powered financial services through WhatsApp, raised $5 million in a funding round led by Lux Capital, with participation from Lux and Canary.

🌎 Bit2Me, the Madrid-based cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset platform, raised $34.9 million in a funding round led by Tether, with participation from BBVA, Unicaja Bank, Cecabank, Telefónica, Investcorp, and other institutional investors. 

🇲🇽 Omni, a Costa Rica-based technology and financial conglomerate, acquired online supermarket Jüsto and committed $100 million to scale the business and expand digital grocery operations in Mexico.


| Venture funds 

🇧🇷 General Atlantic, the U.S. growth-equity firm, plans to invest over $500 million in Brazil in 2026 continuing its long-term focus on fintech, technology, and financial services in the country.


Want to sponsor a newsletter?
See our sponsorship information here or reach out to latam@thisweekinfintech.com. 

Want to sponsor an event with the TWIF LatAm community? 
Check out the FAQ here, send us your info via this form, or reach out to latam@thisweekinfintech.com

| Exits 

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🇦🇷 Visa is in talks to acquire part of Prisma Medios de Pago, Argentina’s largest payments processor, with plans to take ownership of the Newpay and Texpert verticals while Advent would retain control of Payway.


| Product Launches & Partnerships 

💻 Fintech

🇲🇽 Revolut expanded its operations in Mexico by launching its first local credit card, issued by Mastercard under the Platinum and World Elite categories and tied a tiered subscription model.

🇲🇽 Mercado Pago surpassed one million active POS terminals in Mexico as of January 2026, accelerating infrastructure deployment ahead of an expected rise in digital transactions during the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

🇵🇪 ATU, Lima’s urban transport authority, integrated the digital wallet Yape to enable remote recharges for Metropolitano and Complementary Corridor transit cards, eliminating cash transactions and reducing wait times at physical terminals.

🇦🇷 Satoshi Tango, an Argentine cryptocurrency exchange and digital wallet provider,  integrated Brazil’s PIX payment system into its platform, allowing Argentine travelers to pay Brazilian merchants digitally from their wallets, without cash or international credit cards.

🇨🇴 Nu Colombia, the local subsidiary of Nubank, integrated QR code payment through Bre-B, Colombia’s national instant payment system, enabling real-time, interoperable transactions without cards or cash.

🇲🇽 Bitso, a Mexico-based crypto currency exchange, became one of only eight companies globally—and the first in Latin America— to receive the Cryptocurrency Security Standard (CCSS) 2025 certification with a maximum AAA rating.

🇺🇾 Xsolla, a global payments and commerce platform for the gaming industry, integrated Mercado Pago into its payment suite in Uruguay, expanding access to localized digital payment methods.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking 

🇲🇽 Grupo Financiero Banorte updated its mobile banking app to streamline family remittances, allowing users to receive funds digitally or collect cash within defined daily limits.

🇲🇽 Fundary, a Mexican crowdfunding institution, introduced a specialized credit line for Costco wholesale customers, aiming at improving short-term liquidity for SMEs. 

🇲🇽 Tapi, a payment infrastructure providers, and Totalplay, a telecom and internet services company, Partnered to modernize digital collections through automated reminders and real-time reconciliation.

🇲🇽 BanBajío and Visa have launched BBClik, an application that utilizes Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to transform Android smartphones into contactless payment terminals.

🇨🇴 Viamericas, an international remittance company, expanded its partnership with Bancolombia to integrate its transfer network with Nequi, enabling instant remittances for its over 26 million users.


| Policy

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil initiated the extrajudicial liquidation of CBSF DTVM (formerly Reag Investimentos) increasing regulatory scrutiny across the fintech and payments ecosystem..

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil rejected the authorization request of E2 Instituição de Pagamentos, preventing the fintech from operating regulated payment services in the National Financial System.

🇦🇷 Argentina’s Central Bank (BCRA) is advancing a regulatory framework hat could allow banks to offer cryptocurrency trading and custody services through home banking platforms by April 2026.

🇵🇦 Panama’s National Assembly received a bill proposing comprehensive regulatory framework for the fintech sector, aimed at modernizing the financial system and expanding digital inclusion.

🇨🇴 Stori, the Mexican fintech unicorn, secured authorization from Colombia’s financial regulator to begin operations in the country.

🇦🇷 Argentina’s social security agency (ANSES) authorized Naranja X, a digital wallet and financial services platform backed by Grupo Financiero Galicia, to disburse social benefits digitally.


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| Other News 

🔄Leadership changes 

🇲🇽 BNP Paribas México, appointed Philippe de Caraman as its new CEO, to strengthen its corporate and investment banking operations in the country and deepen relationships with multinational and large local clients.

🌎 VTEX, the commerce platform provider, appointed Yuriko Huayana as General Manager LatAm, reinforcing its regional leadership strategy to accelerate growth, enterprise adoption, and ecosystem partnerships across key markets.

🇺🇸 Prometeo joined the Financial Data and Technology Association (FDATA) North America, expanding the association's network of fintech infrastructure providers across the United States and Canada.

🇧🇷 PicPay, the Brazilian digital wallet and payments super-app, filed for a proposed IPO on Nasdaq, to access U.S. capital markets to support its next phase of expansion.

🌎 Visa highlighted advances in AI-driven transaction security, pointing to broader adoption by 2026 as artificial intelligence improves fraud prevention, authorization accuracy, and real-time payments.

🇨🇴 Colombia’s financial system faces a significant open finance awareness gap, with more than half of Colombians unfamiliar with the concept, creating challenges and opportunities for banks and fintechs.

🇧🇷 Brazilian venture capital funds, are increasingly positioning portfolios for U.S. IPOs to unlock liquidity for late-stage fintech and SaaS startups as global investor appetite for Latin American tech recovers.

🌎The LatAm tech ecosystem, closed 2025 with a new ranking of the region’s most valuable unicorns, highlighting continued scale in fintech, e-commerce, and SaaS despite tighter funding conditions.

🇲🇽 OXXO and Uber Eats expanded their partnership in Mexico broadening access to OXXO products through the delivery platform and deepening the integration of physical retail and on-demand digital commerce.


| Deeper Reads  

Fintech Trends 2026: Smart, Integrated, and Frictionless Finance (ES)Fintech trends for 2026 point to smart, frictionless finance enabled by open banking and APIs transforming payments, credit, and digital savings.

Payments via agents, culture, and the urgency of new commerce (PO) The next payments battle isn’t tech, it’s behavior, agent-based and conversational payments are quietly reshaping commerce by meeting consumers where culture already lives, not where banks want them to be.

Technology drives a new level of operational efficiency in financial institutions (ES) Banks and fintechs in Mexico are prioritizing end-to-end operational efficiency, using intelligent automation, real-time analytics, APIs, and AI for areas like onboarding, reconciliation, transaction processing, regulatory reporting, and fraud prevention, with benefits tied to lower costs, fewer errors, faster response, and more scalable compliance.

How AI Is Making Life Easier for Cybercriminals.The piece describes how generative AI scales phishing and scams, citing estimates that half to three-quarters of global spam and phishing is now AI-generated, and noting criminal marketplaces selling AI-enabled tools and subscriptions, while experts say fully autonomous attacks are not here yet outside labs and emphasize skepticism and basic hygiene like verifying senders and using multifactor authentication.


📣 LatAm fintech enthusiasts looking for a new role, check out https://jobs.thisweekinfintech.com


Made in LatAm with 🩵by 

Elena, Deputy Director of New Technologies at Afirme Financial Group

Carlos, ESG Analyst at CFECapital

Vivi, Communication expert and Principal at Areté Consulting

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