Hola amig@s fintech,

Yesterday, Alex Honnold scaled Taipei 101, a 508-meter-tall building. We couldn’t help but think his next challenge should be in Latin America, starting with Panama City and its striking skyline of high-rises.

It may not be the tallest, but the F&F Tower, better known as El Tornillo (the screw), could be an interesting choice. This 236-meter, 52-floor building twists upward like a giant screw. Each floor rotates nine degrees from the one below, completing a full 360-degree turn by the time you reach the top.

It might prove tricky to climb, but it’s a reminder that when it comes to bold infrastructure, the region stands tall. The same is true for fintech trends and news, and we hope you find this week’s edition of TWIF informative and useful.

🩵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

Mexico Fintech Week 2026

The GOAT at TWIF-House

Hi, greetings from 1942.

Let’s take a quick trip through time. We find ourselves in a French Baroque mansion, the kind where the walls seem to whisper ideas. You might guess Paris or London. Wrong. This is Mexico City, 1942, when the world was anything but quiet.

Inside, two figures appear, living in the house at that moment. One is Renato Leduc, Mexico’s great poet. The other is Leonora Carrington. British-born, Mexico-made. A surrealist painter whose fantastical worlds reshaped art history. One of her paintings would later sell for $28.5 million by Sotheby’s, a remarkable feat for someone who found inspiration within these walls. Fast-forward to February 2026, that mansion becomes our TWIF-House during Mexico Fintech Week. Intimate, invite-only, built for sharp, meaningful conversations with the right people. Ideas collide. GOAT happens. Greatest Of All Talks. What happens inside TWIF-House:

• Closed-door conversations with operators, builders, and decision-makers shaping fintech today
• Real talk on payments, banking, lending, fraud, AI, and financial infrastructure. Fewer panels, better conversations, and the right room to make them happen

Dive into the events and see how to join the vibe, whether attending or sponsoring. Think of it as your backstage pass minus the velvet rope. Get in, get inspired, make it yours. 

See you inside. Main character energy only.

Your MFW Team

🗣️ Channels

| Stat of the Week 

According to the “2026 Trend in FinTech” Report by S&P Global, a key challenge for the mass adoption of stablecoins is the lack of consumer trust. 45% of respondents are concerned about being scammed when using them, 43% worry their money could be lost, stolen or hacked, and 35% are unsure they can trust the provider. For stablecoins, closing this trust gap remains key to broader adoption.

|  Read of the Week 

The report “2026 Trends in FinTech” points to a maturing fintech market, with a growing focus on efficiency and practical deployment of technology. Global investment continues to rise, driven by increased activity in digital assets and venture capital. At the same time, the adoption of generative AI, open APIs, and real-time payments is reshaping how financial services are designed and delivered.

The report also highlights deeper integration between fintechs, traditional banks, and digital platforms. Embedded infrastructure and closer collaboration signal a shift away from rapid, experimental growth toward more sustainable, regulated models focused on real-world utility. In this context, fintech is moving beyond disruption and becoming a core component of the digital financial system.

| Post of the Week 

| Podcast of the Week

Alejandro Diez Barroso, Managing Partner at DILA Capital, reflects on bootstrapping two early e-commerce businesses in Mexico and learning a defining lesson: in many markets, the real constraint to scale is access to growth capital and institutional readiness. He explains why those companies were sold not by choice, but necessity, and how that experience shaped his focus on investing across the Spanish-speaking world and helping founders build venture-backable companies with clear paths to liquidity.

| Venture Financing 

💰 Equity

🇦🇷 Pomelo, the Argentine payment infrastructure provider, raised $55 million in a Series C round co-led by Kaszek and Insight Partners, with participation from Index Ventures, Adams Street Partners, S32, Endeavor Catalyst, monashees and TQ Ventures.

🇧🇷 Akua, the AI-enabled paytech, raised $13 million in total funding, co-led by Flourish Ventures and Cathay Latam, with participation from Atlantico, Honey Island 4UM, Krealo and Simma Capital.

🇨🇴 Monet, the Colombian digital lender, raised $24 million Series A round structured with equity and debt.

💵 Debt 

🇧🇷 UY3, the Brazilian credit infrastructure platform that connects fintechs, correspondents and loan originators to capital markets, raised $37.2 million from funds managed by Vinci Compass.

🇧🇷 CashU, the Brazilian B2B SME lender using AI credit models, raised $23 million for its Credit Rights Investment Fund (FIDC), adding BTG Asset Management and Capitânia Investimentos as new investors.

| Exits 

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🌎 PayPal  announced the acquisition of Cymbio, to strengthen commerce automation, merchant intelligence, and AI-driven personalization.

🏦 M&A - Banks, Insurers & Incumbents

🇦🇷 Banco Macro announced  a $75 million investment for a 50 percent stake in Personal Pay, the digital wallet operated by Telecom, subject to regulatory approval.

| Product Launches & Partnerships 

💻 Fintech

🇧🇷 Nuvemshop, the Latin American e-commerce platform for SMEs, and Meta launched a native WhatsApp integration with Meta in Brazil, enabling end-to-end commerce flows directly within the messaging app.

🇨🇴 Grupo Cibest, the Colombian financial group, launched Zaswin, a remittance service using WhatsApp as its primary interface for transfers from the United States.

🇵🇪 HONOR, the consumer electronics brand, launched its first direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform in Peru through a partnership with dLocal, the Uruguayan payments company, integrating local payment methods.

🇵🇪 Toquea, the Peruvian payroll-linked credit provider, launched Toquea Shop, an e-commerce marketplace financed through payroll deductions.

🇧🇷 Nu, the Brazilian digital Bank, signed a multi-year global partnership with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, becoming an official team partner starting in the 2026 season.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking 

🇲🇽 Hey Banco, the digital subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Banregio, will begin operating independently under its own banking license on January 31, 2026.

🇨🇴 Bancolombia and Nequi, the digital wallet, intergrated Wenia, the digital asset unit of Grupo Cibest, enabling users to trade digital dollars and other cryptoassets within their apps.

​​🇨🇱 AFP Multiplica, a new digital-first pension fund manager, was launched by a group of Chilean technology and finance investors ahead of the 2027 bidding process.

| Policy 

🇨🇱 The Chilean Financial Market Commission (CMF) granted TTenpo Bank Chile final operating authorization, designating the Credicorp-backed entity as the country’s first licensed neobank under the General Banking Law, with operations set to begin by January 2027.

🇧🇷 The Federal Reserve and Florida Office of Financial Regulation secured Inter’s application to establish a state-licensed international banking branch in Miami, expanding the group’s U.S. presence.

🇨🇴 The 🇨🇴 Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia authorized Cobre Financial to incorporate as a Financing Company (Compañía de Financiamiento), enabling it to offer regulated credit and deposit services.

🇧🇷 The National Monetary Council (CMN) and the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) approved updates to Credit Guarantee Fund (FGC) regulations, including faster deposit insurance payouts and new mechanisms to support acquisitions of distressed institutions.

🇨🇱 The Chilean Financial Market Commission (CMF) formally confirmed Tenpo Bank Chile’s operating authorization as of January 19, 2026, concluding a multi-year licensing process.

🇵🇪 The Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP (SBS) of Peru published a proposal requiring financial institutions to notify users within 24 hours of major digital service disruptions or cybersecurity incidents.

🇩🇴 The Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores (SIMV) of the Dominican Republic enacted Resolution R-CNMV-2025-27-MV, establishing a formal regulatory framework for investment crowdfunding platforms.

🇵🇪 Revolut formally applied for a full banking license in Peru.

| Other News 

🇲🇽 General Atlantic, the global growth equity firm with deep exposure to Latin America, flagged the lack of IPO-ready startups in Mexico as a structural barrier to capital market reactivation. The firm pointed to the need for stronger late-stage scale, institutional governance, and clearer exit pathways to enable public listings and recycle venture capital in the market.

🌎 NuBank, the digital bank, became a global sponsor of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, reinforcing its international brand strategy and signaling ambitions to scale beyond its core LatAm markets.

🌎 Visa, launched a new global stablecoin advisory practice to help banks, fintechs, and merchants design, deploy, and integrate stablecoin-based payment and settlement solutions, signaling deeper institutional adoption of blockchain rails across emerging markets, including LatAm.

🇲🇽 Grupo Elektra, the Mexican retail and financial services conglomerate, announced store closures amid earnings pressure, reflecting broader shifts toward digital channels and tighter consumer credit conditions, with implications for embedded finance and retail-linked fintech models in Mexico.

🌎Coinbase, the global crypto exchange, highlighted LatAm as a priority growth region, citing rising crypto usage driven by inflation, remittances, and financial access gaps, while underscoring regulatory progress and growing institutional interest as key enablers for long-term regional expansion.

| Deeper Reads  

The future of AI is being written in Latin American startups (ES)

WIRED reports on a growing wave of startups applying AI to practical problems across health, logistics, e-commerce, employment, and sales, often by adapting foundational models from big tech to local needs. The piece also highlights the region’s constraints, including infrastructure, credibility, and digital literacy, and argues execution and measurable ROI matter more than hype for adoption. 

Agent payments: what they are and why they could change the way we make online payments (ES)

Agentic payments could reshape how online commerce works, as AI agents begin to search, compare, and complete purchases on behalf of users. The article explains how shared payment tokens and specialized protocols aim to keep authorization secure while reducing friction at checkout. As digital assistants take on more decision-making, payments could shift from user-initiated actions to automated workflows.

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