Half of Mexico’s remittances end in cash

🇦🇷 eToro agreed to acquire LB Finanzas, a Rosario-based investing and payments app, and will make Argentina its Latin American hub. Terms weren’t disclosed.

🇧🇷 Yellow Card, the stablecoin payments infrastructure provider, acquired GoMoney, a São Paulo virtual asset service provider. It’s Yellow Card’s first acquisition in ten years and its first owned business in Latin America.

🇲🇽 BanCoppel partnered with tapi to let the 14 million people who use its app each month pay electricity, water, phone and internet bills and buy airtime with their account balance. Payments carry no fees and come with due-date reminders.

🇧🇷 Zoop, the payments company owned by Brazilian food-delivery giant iFood, won approval from Visa and Mastercard to operate as a card acquirer. Integrations should finish with Mastercard by end of January 2027 and with Visa in the first half of 2027.

🇲🇽 Clara, the corporate spend management platform, raised $105 million. That’s a $65 million Series C led by Citius, with Kaszek and DEG, plus $40 million in renewed growth financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. Clara now has more than $100 million in annualized net revenue.

🇦🇷 Takenos, the stablecoin financial platform, raised a $7 million seed extension led by North Island Ventures and Road Capital Management, with Variant, Lattice and Reverie. Total funding is now $12 million, and the company plans to grow from six countries to more than 15 in 2027.

🇺🇾 Paigo, the Uruguayan small-business lender, secured up to $5 million in debt from IDB Lab, part of a package of up to $10 million. The money will fund loans to women-led businesses and firms with no credit history.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s federal government published the Digital Economy Law, which took effect November 5. It gives the Finance Ministry the power to name sectors where cash use must shrink.

🇨🇱 The Banco Central de Chile said it will publish guidelines to modernize low-value payments, with transfers from people to merchants as the priority, and will draft rules for issuing stablecoins under the Fintech Law. Both will go to public consultation.

🇵🇪 Peru’s central bank, the BCRP, created a national QR standard that replaces the 2020 framework and requires QR providers to manage fraud and cybersecurity risk. 

🇵🇪 Peru’s banking regulator, the SBS, approved a rule that lets banks, insurers and fund managers sell other companies’ financial products through their own channels. Existing distribution contracts have 180 days to comply.

🇲🇽 Mexico’s banking regulator, the CNBV, updated its rules for bank contingency plans. Systemically important banks must update their plans every two years and all other banks every three, with board sign-off but no new CNBV approval.

🇧🇷 Banco Central do Brasil closed its crypto licensing window with 143 applicants, several times the 20 to 30 experts expected. Since November 6, banks and payment companies can no longer work with crypto firms that have neither a license nor a pending application.

🇨🇱 Tenpo named Adolfo Pittaluga, former CEO of Fpay, as CEO starting January 1, 2027. Co-founder Fernando Araya moves to the board as Tenpo starts operating as a bank.

🇲🇽 Arkangeles, the crowdfunding platform authorized by Mexico’s banking regulator, began a new phase under CEO Eloísa Cadenas, focused on connecting investors with startups, small businesses and real estate projects.