Hola amig@s fintech,

This week’s update brings a roundup of key developments across the region—including new funding rounds, product launches, strategic partnerships, and policy moves in Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. We hope you find these insights useful and relevant.

The LatAm team will take some days off, and we will be back on Sunday August 31 with more regional fintech news.

🩵 Until next weekend. Até a próxima!

• Lorena

🌐 TWIF Community

🗣️ Channels

📊 Stat of the Week 

Female labor force participation peaks in both the richest and poorest countries, but for opposite reasons: in developed economies (e.g., Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland) it stems from greater educational and economic opportunities, while in the poorest nations it is driven by necessity and concentrated in informal or subsistence work. In Latin America, the Southern Cone leads in female inclusion, while Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela report less than 45% (Source)

📖  Read of the Week

The study “Panorama de la innovación en México y Centroamérica 2025,” by KPMG, reveals that 75% of organizations in Mexico and 69% in Central America anticipate significant changes to their products or services within the next three years, largely to stay competitive (39% in Mexico, 29% in Central America) and optimize their portfolios (25% and 27%). In terms of drivers and barriers: a culture of innovation is seen as a key enabler (67% in Mexico; 53% in Central America), backed by leadership support (66%; 49%). However, obstacles include lack of emerging tech adoption (38%) and skill gaps (36%) in Mexico, and a weak innovation culture (44%) and poor alignment among areas (40%) in Central America.

🦉 Post of the Week

 🎙️ Podcast of the Week

💸 Venture Financing

💸 Equity

🇲🇽 Monato, the Mexican embedded-finance fintech enabling companies to create and manage accounts, disperse payments, increase offerings, and extend credit via APIs, raised a $13 million Seed round led by Monashees and FinTech Collective. IGNIA Partners, Clocktower Ventures, Polymath Ventures, and Angel Ventures also participated in the round.

🇧🇷 IORQ, the Brazilian credit-infrastructure startup that uses AI-powered APIs to automate credit underwriting, contract management, and real-time monitoring, raised a $6.4 million round from Monashees, ONEVC, Upload Ventures, and Norte Ventures. 

🇨🇴 Creditop, the Colombian point-of-sale financing fintech, raised $3.7 million in a round led by Collide Capital, with participation from Clocktower, Alaya Capital, and Amador Holdings. 

🇧🇷 BlindPay, the Brazilian company that has developed an API to facilitate cross-border stablecoin transactions for businesses, raised a $3.3 million Seed round from Jawed Karim (YouTube co-founder), Bitso, 468 Capital, and Transpose Platform.

🇬🇹 Saf.money, the Guatemala–based paytech orchestrating Bitcoin and stablecoin payments, raised an undisclosed Pre-seed round to scale its cross-border operations, from Fulgur Ventures, Plan B, Initial Capital, and 1A1z.

💵 Debt 

🇧🇷 Stone, Brazil’s financial-services platforms for merchants, secured $54 million in financing from IDB Invest, the private-sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank.

💰 Venture funds 

🇨🇱 Link Capital Partners, the Chilean investment firm, raised its second private debt investment fund through the Cumplo platform. This new fund will be structured via the issuance of new Series B shares, doubling the number of subscribed quotas (2 new for every 1 existing), and was already approved at a quota-holder meeting. No specific amounts, financial terms, or lead investors were disclosed.

🇨🇱 CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción) is promoting a pilot Venture Capital Investment Fund for the Region of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic, led by its Investment and Financing Management (GIF). The fund is still in the design phase and aims to bring together public and private stakeholders to channel investments into strategic sectors defined by the Regional Productive Development Committee.

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☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🇲🇽 Finsus, the Mexican digital banking and fintech platform, acquired the merchant cash advance technology of Anticipa, a startup specializing in advances on future card-sales flows. The deal enables Finsus to offer SMEs financing of around $8,075 secured against card sales via a fully digital experience.

🇧🇷 Visma, the Norwegian business software giant serving over 2.1 million customers, acquired Brazilian cloud-ERP fintech Conta Azúl, which caters to around 100,000 small businesses managing invoicing, cash flow, inventory, budgeting, and tax compliance. 

🚀 Product Launches & Partnerships

💻 Fintech

🇦🇷 Mercado Pago launched a new program aimed at small and medium-sized merchants, offering loans of up to ARS 10,000,000 at a 0% interest rate.

🇦🇷 Depay, the Argentine startupp specializing in QR payment infrastructure, announced a partnership with Airtm, one of the largest digital dollar and personal finance platforms in the region. The alliance will allow Airtm users to make QR code payments at participating physical stores in Argentina and Brazil directly from their digital wallet.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking 

🇲🇽 Banco Santander México introduced a new feature allowing customers to make international transfers in seven different currencies, expanding their options for cross-border transactions.

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil will drop most of its tokenization and blockchain elements for the launch of Drex, the Bank’s digital currency, aiming for its release in 2026.

📜 Policy

🇧🇷 Zetta, the fintech and payment institutions association, and the Brazilian Association of Digital Credit joined the Steering Committee for Credit Portability and Self-Regulation of Payroll Loans.

🇧🇷 The Central Bank of Brazil proposed that regulation for the use of AI in the financial system follow the UK model, granting sector regulators flexibility to define AI applications. The institution emphasized the need to balance risk management with fostering innovation.

🇧🇷 Following U.S. arguments regarding sector competition, the Central Bank of Brazil stated that the introduction of Pix has not resulted in the cannibalization of credit card transactions, as both payment methods have shown a positive growth trend between 2020 and 2024.

🇨🇴 Colombia’s digital payments system Bre-B is urging cooperatives to embrace digital transformation to avoid losing market share to fintechs. Cooperatives will now be required to report transactional data to the Superintendence of the Solidarity Economy.

🇨🇱 Chile published its National Cybersecurity Policy Action Plan 2023-2028 in the Official Gazette. Led by the National Cybersecurity Agency, the initiative aims to bolster the protection of critical infrastructure and strengthen the country’s digital ecosystem.

🇨🇱 The Central Bank of Chile announced the development of new regulations to promote interoperability of electronic funds transfers, aiming to enhance their use in commerce without institutional barriers.

📰 Other News 

🌎 Fernando Scasserra was named Chief Technology Officer at Ualá.

🇲🇽 Konfío, the Mexican unicorn specializing in businesses, is revising its user authentication system by moving away from one-time passwords (OTPs) and adopting behavioral biometrics—tracking how users interact with their devices (typing patterns, phone angle, etc.) to enhance security and reduce fraud risk such as phishing and SIM swapping.

🇨🇴 FAIR Center, the Research center of the University Monterrey Institute of Technology in collaboration with Mastercard, whose objective is to promote a more fair and inclusive financial system in LatAm, launched a “Finance for Peace” academic initiative offering practical personal finance and financial access workshops for women signatories of the Peace Agreement in Colombia. 

🇲🇽 MVNOs in Mexico, particularly BAIT (the Walmart-backed virtual operator), have surpassed Movistar to become the country's second-largest mobile operator. Collectively, MVNOs now account for 15.9% of mobile lines (over 24 million), with BAIT alone reaching 18.5M users by late 2024 and surpassing 20M in 2025. They also dominate mobile internet connections (over 70% of MVNO‐provided lines) 

📚 Deeper Reads

LatAm VC in 2025: What’s Really Going On at the Halfway Mark

What Fintechs Got Right About Life Stages

It's time for the banking industry to look to a future beyond SWIFT

Ethereum and the migration of the traditional economy to on-chain (PO)

In the deal with Binance, BBVA sells its reputation to the world's largest exchange (ES)

📣 LatAm fintech enthusiasts looking for a new role, check out https://jobs.thisweekinfintech.com

Made in LatAm with 🩵by 

Elena, Digital Innovation Manager at Banco Azteca

Carlos, Research Assistant in tech and AI impact in Mexico at El Colegio de México

Lorena, Head of Policy for Spanish-speaking LatAm at Tools for Humanity

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