Mastercard, PayPal, Bre-B: payments accelerate, fraud lags | TWIF LatAm (03/25)

Hola amig@s fintech,

The Latin American payments landscape is accelerating on multiple fronts. Mastercard completed live agentic payment transactions across Latin America, just a week after Visa and Santander ran their own multi-country pilot. Colombia's Bre-B surpassed 500 million transactions in just five months, now one of the fastest-growing real-time payment systems in the region. And PayPal expanded access to its dollar-backed stablecoin PYUSD to six Latin American countries.

The infrastructure is accelerating. The fraud defenses less so.

The 2026 Global eCommerce Payments and Fraud Report, featured in the Read of the Week, shows real-time payment fraud is now the region's top attack vector. Across the industry, fragmented systems and poor orchestration are limiting fraud management effectiveness, even as attacks become more sophisticated.

P.S. Small news: we've been acquired by Plaid. No big deal. https://www.thisweekinfintech.com/p/plaid-is-acquiring-twif

Enjoy the read, and we will see you back here next week!

~Vivi

The 2026 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report, based on a survey of over 1,200 merchants across 37 countries, highlights that real-time payments are now among the most widely accepted methods globally. At the same time, agentic AI payments are moving forward, with 63% of merchants already planning or exploring their adoption. On fraud, the report shows that Latin America stands out for its exposure to real-time payment fraud and the lowest chargeback dispute win rates globally, underscoring structural challenges in how disputes are managed across the region. Data and technology remain the industry’s biggest pain points, with fragmented systems and poor orchestration limiting effectiveness and pushing investment toward automation and more accurate AI-driven decisioning. The report states that even as overall fraud incidence declines, the problem is getting harder to manage, with more attack types, higher fraud rates per order, and increasing false positives.

In this episode of Startupeable, Andrés Santos shares how he built Comun, the neobank for Latino immigrants in the U.S., growing revenue from $100K to $10M in 2025, now processing over $1B annually in payments, and raising more than $30M. He reflects on what it means to truly understand an underserved customer, how that conviction shapes product and strategy, and why he chose to build differently rather than follow startup orthodoxy.

 🇦🇷 Rexi, the Argentine transaction reconciliation platform raised a $1.2M pre-seed round led by NFX, Pear VC and others. The company uses an AI-native approach to automate financial reconciliations for high-volume businesses.

🇵🇪 Prestamype, the Peruvian SME lending platform, secured $27 million in financing, including a $25 million credit line from international fund Lendable and a $2 million equity round. The company will use the funds to expand lending to MIPYMEs and grow its loan portfolio in Peru.

 🌎Alive Ventures, the Colombian impact investment firm, closed a $55M second fund (ALEG II), backed by investors including Proparco, FMO, and Impact Fund Denmark. The fund targets early growth-stage companies, particularly pre-Series A and Series A, with a focus on financial inclusion and climate solutions in Colombia and Peru.

🇦🇷 Banco Macro, the Argentine bank agreed with Fintech Digital LLC to acquire 100% of Banco Sáenz, a small Argentine bank, for a price equivalent to its net worth plus $2M, pending regulatory approval. The bank will serve as a platform to support digital financial services and the growth of Personal Pay wallet ecosystem.

 🌎 PayPal expanded access to its dollar-backed stablecoin (PYUSD) to 68 new markets including Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama, after previously limiting it to the U.S. and U.K. The move significantly broadens distribution in Latin America, opening the door to wider use of stablecoins in cross-border payments.

🌎 Venmo expanded its P2P payment reach by enabling users to send money to more recipients through the broader PayPal network, increasing interoperability across PayPal-owned services. The move extends Venmo’s functionality beyond its core user base and strengthens PayPal’s push toward a more connected payments ecosystem. 

🇲🇽 Hey Banco, the digital arm of Banregio, launched Hey Tech,  a new unit to offer its financial infrastructure and AI capabilities to banks and fintechs across Latin America. The move expands its model beyond retail banking into providing API-based tech and payments solutions to third parties.

🇧🇷 Nubank launched Earn Crypto in Brazil, a feature that allows users to earn rewards on their crypto holdings, starting with support for Solana (SOL). The launch expands the bank’s existing crypto offering and adds new ways for users to engage with digital assets.

🇨🇴 Colombian fintech Zulu launched Zulu48, a feature that allows businesses to lock in a US dollar exchange rate for up to 48 hours to manage currency volatility. The product is designed to give companies more certainty over FX pricing in their day-to-day operations.

  🇨🇱 ProntoPaga, the Chilean payments company entered the Argentine market with an initial $2.5 million investment, targeting high-volume online gambling and digital entertainment sectors.

 🏦 Financial Services & Banking 

🇲🇽 Plata received final authorization from Mexico’s CNBV and began operating as a licensed digital bank under the "Banca Múltiple Nivel 1" model, marking its formal entry into the country’s regulated banking sector. 

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil proposed new rules to govern the use and sharing of customer data within the Open Finance ecosystem. The draft framework aims to clarify how participants can access and use data, as the system expands and new use cases emerge.

 🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil is preparing a package of regulatory measures to address digital threats in the financial system, with a focus on fraud, money laundering, and cyber-enabled crimes. The initiative involves coordination with authorities such as the Federal Police to strengthen oversight and response across the ecosystem.

🌎 Mastercard completed live agentic payment transactions across Latin America and the Caribbean, advancing its rollout of AI-driven payments where software agents can initiate and execute transactions on behalf of users.

🇨🇴 Colombia's central bank real-time payment system Bre-B surpassed 500 million transactions and 100 million registered payment keys in its first five months of operation, consolidating as one of the fastest-growing instant payment systems in Latin America according to ACI Worldwide.

🇨🇴 TumiPay, the Colombian digital payments infrastructure, appointed Karina Sensebe as Regional Country Manager for LatAm.

 🇧🇷 Santander Brasil, appointed Gilson Finkelsztain as new CEO in Brazil.

 Banks want less cash, but Mexicans distrust them (ES)

The article analyzes digital conversations about the banking system in Mexico, based on more than 12,800 posts across social platforms, and finds that distrust dominates sentiment, with over 80% of mentions expressing negative views. It highlights how concerns around surveillance, fraud, loss of control, and exclusion of vulnerable groups are shaping public perception, even as authorities push to accelerate digital payments. 

Payment intelligence is redefining orchestration

In this interview, a payments industry executive discusses how payment orchestration is evolving into a “payment intelligence” layer, using data to optimize routing, reduce costs, and manage multiple providers and compliance requirements. The conversation frames orchestration as moving beyond connectivity toward a more strategic, decision-making role within payments infrastructure.

Made in LatAm with 🩵by 

Elena, Head of New Technologies at Afirme Financial Group

Carlos, ESG Analyst at CFECapital

Vivi, Communication expert and Principal at Areté Consulting

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.

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