Hola amig@s fintech,

Hope you had a great 4th of July!

Here’s your roundup of the latest fintech news from across Latin America—new deals, fresh launches, and the trends shaping the region’s digital economy. Let’s dive in!

🩵 Until next weekend. Até a próxima!

• Lorena

🌐 TWIF Community

🗣️ Channels

📊 Stat of the Week

In H1 2024, there were just 323 VC deals, the lowest since 2018, totaling USD 2.0 billion, with only 142 deals in Q2 — the slowest quarter since late 2018 — attributed to US investor pullback and a more cautious global market (Source). 

📖  Read of the Week

According to “The Future of Enterprise AI Agents” by Cloudera, 96% of enterprises plan to expand the use of AI agents over the next 12 months in emerging markets, including Latin America; 57% have implemented these agents in the past two years (21% in just the last year). The top use cases in the region include customer support (78%), process automation (71%), and predictive analytics (57%). However, 53% of Latin American organizations (in line with the global average) identify data privacy as the main challenge, followed by legacy system integration (40%) and high implementation costs (39%).

🎙️ Podcast of the Week

💸 Venture Financing

💸 Equity

🇲🇽 Klar, the Mexican digital banking services company, raised a $190 million Series C round led by General Atlantic, with participation from Ribbit Capital and Kaszek . 

🇨🇴 Welli, the Colombian fintech enabling medical loans for procedures like dental, fertility, and aesthetic care, raised a $25 million Series A round. 

💵 Debt 

🇲🇽 Plata, the Mexico-based neobank, issued $120 million in senior unsecured bonds, essentially a debt raise. The offering was oversubscribed by 1.7 times, driven by strong demand from international institutional investors, Plata did not disclose their identities.

💰 Venture funds 

🌍 The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has committed $50 million in debt to Victory Park Capital Investor Fund W. This commitment, which follows prior participation from IDB Invest, will enable continued financing for fintech lenders that focus on underserved MSMEs in emerging markets, particularly Mexico and Colombia. 

📺 Sponsored Content

☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

🇦🇷 Revolut, the UK-based digital bank, acquired Banco Cetelem Argentina, including its banking license and $6.4 million in assets from BNP Paribas. The amount wasn’t disclosed. The acquisition fast-tracks Revolut’s entry into Argentina, where it will offer multi-currency accounts, fee-free transfers, FX, and credit.

🇨🇴 Neurona, the Colombian payments-infrastructure company, has been acquired by FiT (Finanzas, Innovación y Tecnología), part of Constellation Software Inc. Neurona enables banks and cooperatives across LatAm with SaaS-based payment processing, PSE, interbank transfers, and KPO services. Post-acquisition, Neurona will operate as an autonomous unit within FiT to support regional expansion.

🚀 Product Launches & Partnerships

💻 Fintech

🇨🇴 Nequi, the Colombian digital wallet, unveiled Nequi Negocios, a new feature allowing any mobile phone to accept customer payments without requiring a traditional point-of-sale (POS) terminal.

🇦🇷 Belo, the Argentinian digital wallet, announced a new feature enabling users to receive QR payments anywhere in Argentina, utilizing their wallet balance for seamless transactions across the country.

🇲🇽 Ualá, the digital financial platform, announced a strategic partnership with Aeroméxico to launch an exclusive promotion offering 15% to 30% cashback for customers purchasing Aeroméxico flight tickets when paying with Ualá cards.

🇲🇽 Stori announced the launch of "Apartados", a savings feature within its digital account offering 9.25% interest. Funds are available 24/7, giving users full flexibility to organize and manage their money without restrictions.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking 

🇨🇴 Colombian companies Mibanco and Trii launched a digital CDT (Certificate of Term Deposit) that can be opened and managed entirely via mobile phone, offering a preferential annual yield of 10% E.A. for terms of 6, 9, 12, and 24 months.

🇩🇴 Banco Popular Dominicano unveiled its new API Portal, becoming the first financial institution in the country to offer a public, structured platform that enables subsidiaries, strategic partners, and developers to access its services via application programming interfaces (APIs).

📜 Policy

🇧🇷 Brazil’s Central Bank integrated 11 financial and payment institutions into the country’s Open Finance ecosystem, including C6 Bank, Mercantil, 99 Pay, Master, BRB, CSF (Carrefour), Inter, PagSeguro, Midway, Realize CFI (Renner), and Crefisa CFI.

🇨🇱 Chile’s Financial Market Commission (CMF) announced that Visa and Mastercard have been authorized to begin operating Low-Value Payment Clearing Houses managed by both entities.

🇲🇽 The Mexican Congress approved reforms to the Federal Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Illicit Proceeds (LFPIORPI), including new regulations for crypto exchanges.

🇧🇴 Bolivia’s Financial System Supervisory Authority (ASFI) approved changes to the Regulations for the Control of Illegal or Unauthorized Financial Activities, extending oversight to individuals and entities operating as unlicensed currency exchange houses, reinforcing efforts to combat illicit financial operations. Crypto payment volumes soared +630% since the Central Bank lifted its crypto ban, totaling over USD 430 million in on‑chain transactions—signaling a sharp resurgence in digital asset usage for payments.

📰 Other News 

🇨🇴 Vivian Acuña was named Country Manager at Kapital Bank Colombia.

🌎 Jordan Bulkoski was named Chief Revenue Officer at Jeeves.

🌎 Rodolfo Vilches was named Regulatory Legal Manager at Kushki.

🇦🇷 Despegar, the Argentinian travel company, introduced a new feature that lets users book now and pay later, allowing them to lock in current prices while deferring payment.

🇲🇽 In Mexico, five out of ten money remittance transactions are completed through mobile apps or digital wallets as fintech companies expand mobile-first solutions amid evolving transfer habits.

🌎 LatAm‑GPT, the LatAm developed AI model, is being positioned as a locally-tailored ChatGPT challenger, offering Spanish and Portuguese centric language understanding, regional training data, and cultural nuance calibration aimed at boosting adoption among the region’s users.

🇨🇱 Brazil’s instant payments system PIX, has launched in Chile via licensed partners. It offers 24/7 real-time transfers, QR code payments, and inter-bank interoperability, aiming to accelerate digital payment adoption in the country.

🇨🇱 Production Development Corporation (Corfo) at Chile and Bolsa de Santiago, launched the “Escalamiento Intermediado 2025” program, offering subsidies of up to $630,000 per selected company. The call aims to support expert entities in preparing Chilean startups for ScaleX listings and capital raises; applications close July 15, 2025 . 

📚 Deeper Reads

Dollar’s Decline Meets Rising Dedollarization: The Threat Comes from Within

Stablecoins bring opportunities to banks and fintechs, but there are also risks (PO)

An increasingly powerful digital payments ecosystem (ES)

Other concerns after US accusations (ES)

The Risks of Offering “Free” Goods and Services

3 common mistakes when creating a startup and how to avoid them (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, Senior Associate at Emant Consultants

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

👍👎 Did you like this edition of TWIF LatAm?  Take a 1-minute anonymous survey here.

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