If you ask around the fintech community what regions are up and coming when it comes to fintech you will undoubtedly hear Latin America mentioned. It is the trends we were seeing in Latin America that led us to bring LendIt Fintech to Miami for Finnosummit Miami by Lendit Fintech back in December 2019. Here we heard from many of the top fintech companies and investors who are targeting the region.
If you missed out on the event, Timothy Li CEO at Alchemy has been publishing an in depth series about fintech in LatAm over at Crowdfund Insider. In his first post he shares the size of the opportunity in Latin America, highlighting a session from Clip which operates out of Mexico City. Clip CEO Adolfo Babatz spoke about the future of mobile payments, the trends towards digital payments and some of the challenges with KYC.
In his second post he discusses fintech infrastructure, an area that NovoPayment is looking to tackle. NovoPayment offers an open banking platform to enable digital banks. According to the company a solution can be launched within just six months. President & CEO Anabel Perez also shared her perspective on regulatory ambiguity and how she expects more collaboration over the next couple of years.
Read more: FinnoSummit: LatAm Fintech Revolution Part 2 – Banking as a Service
With big opportunities comes big checks. Li details how a diverse set of investors view the massive opportunity across LatAm. Mike Packer of QED Investors, Fabrice Serfati of Ignia, Marcelo Lim of Monashees and Ishan Sinha of Point72 Ventures all participated on this panel. Brazil continues to be one of the most popular areas of investments, but other areas like Columbia, Mexico and Argentina are also getting traction.
Two of the topics Li noted that received a lot of attention throughout the event were infrastructure and digital transformation. Latin America remains largely a cash based economy and credit simply doesn’t exist in most areas. In this post he delves into various companies that play in these areas.
Read more: FinnoSummit LatAm Fintech Revolution Part 4: LatAm Digital Transformation and Open Banking
It is always interesting to see how fintech plays out differently across the globe. In some cases we see regions leapfrog others when it comes to adoption. China is a great example of this as we saw consumers embrace mobile payments rapidly. In the US we have just started to see technology companies getting into financial services with one great example being Uber. This trend is also playing out in LatAm with Grow Mobility, a scooter company, which is allowing drivers and riders to leverage virtual wallets. Users don’t have a choice but to digitize their money. Li also discusses Loft, a company looking to build a Latin America’s first MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and Nowports, a data logistics company.
Read more: FinnoSummit LatAm Fintech Revolution Part 5: Non-Fintechs becoming Fintechs
In the next installment of Timothy Li’s series he digs into a U.S. company that has expanded Latin America. If you want to be sure you don’t miss out in 2020 mark your calendars for December 8 and 9 when we will return to Miami.
