A few months after consolidating its business in Chile, UPago, the Chilean recurring payments fintech, recently expanded its operations to two key countries in this financial segment: Mexico and Colombia.
According to the company, this expansion aims to consolidate the fintech as one of the major players in LatAm, helping small businesses reduce payment costs by improving their financial management.
The Chilean fintech emerged in 2019 to simplify the management of these companies’ payment and collection platforms. It allows businesses to control their income and accounts payable, improve their cash collection, secure their revenues, and reduce their costs.
In its home country, UPago has clients in automotive loans, financial retail, education institutions, and real estate, among others.
A multi-process financial platform
UPago guarantees the automation and personalization of payment wallets among its primary services. It controls and provides complete payment and bank reconciliation traceability, preventive and delinquent collection management, and final effective collection.
In a recent interview, UPago’s general manager, Felipe Pastenes, stated that “we ensure collection from the moment a collection document is issued, even if it becomes delinquent, eliminating manual processes, reducing costs, improving recovery times, and improving finances.”
Fintechs’ expansion to underserved LatAm countries
In the last two years, several fintechs have sought to expand their operations to the Mexican and Colombian markets, representing significant opportunities for the sector in LatAm.
This is primarily because both markets share economies similar to those of countries such as Brazil and Chile and contain markets almost five times larger than those of other countries.
In Mexico, for example, Venture Capital investment is more up-to-date with what is happening in the U.S. market, attracting many investors willing to bet on disruptive companies in LatAm.
But, in addition to that, another critical factor for these countries to be so attractive for fintechs is the level of bankarization and the subsequent room for growth of financial services startups like UPago.
In a country of almost 130 million people, such as Mexico, for example, only 40% of people are affiliated with a financial institution — a trend that is the opposite of what happens in Chile, which has more than 90% of its population banked.
