No Card, No Problem | TWIF Latin America

🇧🇷 Banco Santander announced its intention to launch a voluntary exchange offer of up to €1.908 billion to acquire the remaining 10% minority stake in Banco Santander Brasil, paying entirely in newly issued Santander shares at a 15% premium.

🇨🇴 Grupo Cibest acquired 100% of Avista Colombia, a Bogotá fintech focused on payroll-deducted loans for the silver economy and pension and salaried workers, in a deal with undisclosed terms.

🇧🇷 Evertec completed its acquisition of a 67% stake in BBChain, a São Paulo blockchain infrastructure provider known for its work on Brazil's Drex tokenization pilots, for an initial $5.6 million, with the remaining stake tied to performance milestones.

🇧🇷 Conta Azul, the Brazilian SMB financial management platform owned by Visma, acquired Mister Contador, a Florianópolis-based accounting automation platform used by more than 3,000 accounting teams, in a deal with undisclosed terms.

EBANX partnered with fintech Pagaleve to launch Pix 4x, a BNPL product that splits purchases into four biweekly Pix installments, reaching more than 500 merchants and targeting the roughly 60 million Brazilians who don't hold a credit card. 

🇨🇴 Nu Colombia initiated a pilot letting credit cardholders finance Bre-B transfers and QR payments in installments of up to 36 months, becoming the first bank in Colombia to offer this within the real-time payment system. 

🇲🇽 Tapi partnered with Hey Banco to integrate its payments infrastructure into the bank's app, letting its roughly 500,000 users pay utility, tuition, and municipal tax bills without leaving the platform. 

🇨🇴 Kapital initiated the process to become a licensed financing company in Colombia after four years of local operations, aiming to expand liquidity products for SMBs. 

🇲🇽 Mercado Lending, the financing arm tied to MercadoLibre and its Mercado Pago wallet in Mexico, is placing up to $262 million on the Bolsa Institucional de Valores in two tranches, part of a debt program authorized for up to $1.57 billion, rated AAA by Fitch and HR Ratings, to fund its Mexican lending business.

🇨🇴 Nequi will begin operating as its own licensed entity, Nequi S.A. Compañía de Financiamiento, on September 1, 2026, moving under direct supervision of Colombia's Financial Superintendency. Nequi stays within Grupo Cibest, and the roughly 27 million users won't see any change to the app. 

🇧🇷 Pix, Brazil's instant payment system, is now accepted at merchants in eight countries, including Argentina, Chile, the US, and Spain, letting Brazilian travelers pay by QR code from their own bank app. The expansion runs through private partnerships among banks, fintechs, and payment networks.