Both Tencent and SoftBank have invested in the company called Ualá which is seeing massive growth during the coronavirus crisis; the company launched in Buenos Aires back in 2017 with the goal to help consumers transact digitally in an economy which is mostly cash-based; they have now issued 1.9 million debit cards and are signing up roughly a half of a percent of Argentina’s population every month; Pierpaolo Barbieri, the founder of Ualá stated, “What we expected to happen over years is now happening over weeks…Since the beginning of the quarantine 35 days ago, we have issued almost 140,000 cards, which is double our regular monthly issuance.” They are also hiring employees to handle the new load on the company with 50 joining during the quarantine, bringing the headcount to over 300; the FT details more on the trends in South America and the other companies which are getting traction. Financial Times
