Hola amig@s fintech,

If you are on this continent, chances are you have been dodging heart-shaped balloons and pink teddy bears for days ahead of February 14. Across most of Latin America, people will celebrate día del amor y la amistad. But not everywhere. Bolivia and Colombia will wait until September, and Brazil marks Dia dos Namorados in June.

You can celebrate this week, save it for later in the year, or skip it altogether, but what you can't do is start your Monday without knowing what's happening in fintech across the region. This week we bring you the latest market movements, regulatory updates, podcasts, data, and a few deeper reads worth your time.

Enjoy it.

🩵We will see you back here next week!

~Vivi

| TWIF Community 

🗓️ Events

 | Mexico Fintech Week 2026

 😱 1,000+ registrations for MFW 2026!

We’ve officially crossed 1,000+ registrations across the events that make up Mexico Fintech Week, with teams from banks, fintechs, retail, investment firms, payments, cross-border and stablecoins already signed up.

📅 Mexico Fintech Week kicks off on Monday, Feb 23. We’re only 15 days away from the big fintech party happening in Mexico City, full of networking, insightful conversations and of course, tacos here and there. 

What you need to know now: 

• Good Company: Fintech leaders from all over the world are already on the list. You will be sharing the room with leaders from Mastercard, Visa, Banorte, Afirme, Santander, Banamex, Revolut, Nubank, Cobre, Ripple, Rain, Femsa, Coppel, Liverpool, Capital One and hundreds more. 
• Top Speakers: Our first round of speakers is out, including top voices from Revolut, Stripe, Nubank, BMONI, and more.
• Go Beyond Fintech: Our list of events includes not only content-led panels on expanding in Mexico, the latest stablecoin trends, and how innovation shapes the financial world, but also social activities, including morning runs, a curated art night, and a happy hour featuring a fintech stand-up roast.
• Meet our partners: The Mexico Fintech Week agenda includes +10 events produced and curated by TWIF with the support of our partners: Rain, VelaFi, REAP, Persona, Bridge, Kulipa, Ripple, Oscilar, Pespay, Utila, Bitrus, among others.
• Join the movement: The MFW initiative is part of the FTMX Week organized by the Fintech Mexico Association. It happens around the Fintech Mexico Festival 2026 edition. We’re celebrating a week when everyone is welcome, and no one is left behind. 

All of this is thanks to our partners!

👉 This is the time to secure your spot and join the fintech movement. See you soon!

The Mexico Fintech Week Team

🗣️ Channels

| Stat of the Week 

LatAm public tech sector remains highly concentrated and underdeveloped: the region’s listed tech companies have a combined enterprise value of ~$250B, with Mercado Libre ($118B) and Nu ($88B) representing 80%+ of the total; Brazil dominates the rankings (7 of the top 10 companies), while PicPay’s ~$2B IPO ended a 4-year drought in Brazilian tech listings since Nu’s 2021 IPO, highlighting a structural gap between abundant private unicorns (Rappi, Kavak, Clip, Creditas, Bitso, CloudWalk) and scarce exits, with large-scale M&A still rare in LatAm.

|  Read of the Week 

According to the "Banking and Capital Markets Outlook for 2026", the sector is heading into a year of moderate growth combined with sustained competitive pressure. AI and fintech continue to act as key drivers of change. GDP growth is expected to rise from 0.3% in 2025 to 1.3% in 2026, while inflation is projected at 3.8% and the reference rate could ease to the 6–6.5% range. At the same time, return on equity is expected to decline to 17% and delinquency to increase to 4.5%, pointing to a banking system that remains resilient but under growing structural strain.

| Post of the Week 

| Podcast of the Week

| Venture Financing 

💰 Equity

🇦🇷 Tapi, the Argentine payments infrastructure company, raised a $27 million Series B round backed by Kaszek and Endeavor, with participation from existing investors, to accelerate its regional expansion across LatAm and strengthen its API-based payments platform.

🇨🇱 Fracttal, the Chilean asset and maintenance management software platform, closed a $35 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital. The funding will support global scaling of its SaaS platform and expansion in industrial and enterprise markets.

🇪🇨 Jelou, the Ecuadorian fintech offering payment and commerce solutions via WhatsApp, raised a $10 million Series A round. The company plans to scale its conversational payments platform and expand across LatAm, targeting SME adoption.

🇨🇴 Quipu, the Colombian fintech focused on financial inclusion and digital lending, secured a $300,000 investment from Impacta VC to expand its credit solutions for underserved users and strengthen its regional fintech footprint.

💵 Debt 

🇲🇽 Clara, the Mexican corporate expense management company, renewed a $150 million credit line with Goldman Sachs. The agreement brings its total debt capacity above $250 million and supports the continued scaling of its corporate financial services across LatAm.

| Venture funds 

🇧🇷 Hiker Ventures, the Brazilian venture capital firm backed by M&A boutique Araújo Fontes, plans to launch a new $16 million fund in 2026. The fund aims to build a portfolio of 15–20 startups, with a sector-agnostic strategy and a focus on fintech infrastructure, healthcare, and AI-driven productivity solutions.

| Exits 

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🇵🇷 Evertec, the Puerto Rican payments and financial infrastructure company, announced the acquisition of Dimensa, the Brazilian software provider for financial institutions, in a $181 million deal aimed at expanding its product suite and footprint across LatAm.

🇧🇷 Asaas, the Brazilian fintech platform providing financial and payment infrastructure for SMEs, announced the acquisition of Mutuus, the Brazilian digital insurance broker, adding insurance distribution as a new vertical within its platform.

| Product Launches & Partnerships 

💻 Fintech

🇨🇴 Nequi integrated with Yape, Peru’s leading digital wallet, enabling real-time cross-border transfers from Peru to Colombia without traditional intermediaries. Funds can be credited directly to Nequi accounts within minutes.

🇧🇷 dLocal entered into a strategic partnership with DHL Express Brazil to implement automated Pix payments, replacing manual bank reconciliations with real-time payment confirmations.

🇨🇱 Chile’s Automated Clearing House (CCA) is advancing a modernization roadmap for 2026 focused on accelerating bulk payment processing and enabling U.S. dollar electronic funds transfers (TEF) between domestic banks.

🌎 Bitso Business launched the second edition of "The Push," its global stablecoin-focused startup accelerator, in partnership with Tether, aimed at supporting financial infrastructure development in Latin America.

🇧🇷 PagBank, the digital banking and payments platform, launched Minizinha Voz, the first point-of-sale terminal in Brazil equipped with an AI-powered voice assistant, designed to support micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs during the sales process.

🇩🇴 Qik Banco Digital, the first neobank in the Dominican Republic and a subsidiary of Grupo Popular, expanded its multi-currency ecosystem with the launch of a 100% digital US dollar savings account, allowing users to manage foreign currency holdings through its mobile app.

🇨🇱 Floid has launched a Consent Manager to help institutions regulated by the Financial Market Commission (CMF) comply with upcoming requirements. The platform supports automated and auditable consent management for the Consolidated Debt Registry (REDEC), effective April 2026, and the new Personal Data Protection Law, effective December 2026.

🇦🇷 AstroPay has partnered with LOP, a Shopify-specialized e-commerce agency, to provide localized payment solutions for merchants in Argentina and across Latin America. The collaboration integrates AstroPay’s digital wallet infrastructure into the Shopify ecosystem to reduce payment friction and support cross-border transactions.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🇺🇸 Mastercard announced the launch of Agent Suite, a platform scheduled for release in Q2 2026 that enables enterprises to develop, test, and deploy customizable AI agents within their operations.

🇸🇻 Accion and Bancoagrícola established a strategic partnership to integrate digital remittances into the Nequi platform in El Salvador. The initiative aims to channel remittance flows, which account for roughly 25% of GDP, into broader financial inclusion.

| Policy 

🇧🇷 Brazil’s Open Finance ecosystem inaugurated a new credit portability service on February 2, 2026, enabling consumers to digitally migrate unsecured personal loans between participating financial institutions.

🇨🇴 The Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (SFC) extended the Open Finance implementation timeline from 18 to 30 months, giving financial institutions additional time to align with interoperability, data-sharing, and security requirements.

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil authorized MagaluPay, the financial services arm of Magazine Luiza, to increase its capital from R$40 million to R$360 million, representing a R$320 million capital injection.

🇲🇽 Naranja X, the financial services subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Galicia, formally applied for a multiple banking institution license with Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV).

🇧🇷 The Brazilian holding company Fictor filed for judicial recovery to restructure R$4.2 billion in liabilities, aiming to stabilize operations amid ongoing investigations by the Federal Police and the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM).

| Other News 

🌍Prosus, the global technology investment group, signed a three-year strategic agreement with AWS to accelerate AI adoption across its portfolio companies, aiming to improve operational efficiency and scale innovation through cloud infrastructure.

🇧🇷 Mercado Pago, said obtaining a banking license in Brazil is not a priority, signaling a focus on scaling its services without becoming a traditional bank amid growing competition in digital banking.

🌍Hiberus, the Spanish digital transformation and IT services company, acquired Telefónica Tech subsidiaries in Mexico, Colombia, and Chile to expand its footprint in LatAm and strengthen its cloud, data, cybersecurity, and digital solutions offering.

🇦🇷 LB Finanzas, which holds licenses as a Settlement and Clearing Agent (ALyC), Payment Service Provider (PSP), and Virtual Asset Service Provider (PSAV), is seeking a full banking license to consolidate its investment, payment, and cryptocurrency services under a single regulated entity.

🇨🇴 Serfinanza, the Colombian bank focused on mass-market financial inclusion, urged policymakers not to exclude the financial sector from public policy discussions, pointing to regulatory uncertainty, high interest rates, and the need for open data to support competition and financial access.

| Deeper Reads  

2026: The next cycle of the financial system in Latin America (ES)

Revista Mercado argues that Latin America is entering a new financial cycle driven less by macro stabilization and more by technology adoption, credit expansion, and structural change. The piece looks at how digital finance and capital efficiency are reshaping banks, fintechs, and capital markets, and at the constraints that could slow this shift, including regulation, credit quality, and institutional capacity.

Innovative Payment Rails Seek to Bridge Traditional Finance and Crypto

Lolacoin looks at how hybrid payment stacks are starting to blend blockchain rails with familiar fiat experiences, so merchants can accept crypto while settling in fiat, often using stablecoins under the hood. The piece argues the real shift is not a wholesale replacement of card networks, but quiet integration, with stablecoins and new routing layers reducing settlement times and fees, and software increasingly choosing between rails like ACH, SEPA, or blockchain depending on cost, speed, and liquidity.

📣 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, Investor Relations and Social Communication at CFECapital

Vivi, Communication expert and Principal at Areté Consulting

👍👎 Did you like this edition of TWIF LatAm?  Take a 1-minute anonymous survey here.

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.

Come meet us in person at www.thisweekinfintech.com/events. You can also join our global community on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.