Banking giant Visa recently announced that it has invested and partnered with Latin America-based open finance platform Belvo to leverage and implement open finance offerings, according to media reports. Prior to this, earlier this year in June, Visa announced that it has participated in Belvo’s $43 million Series A funding. That funding round also saw participation from Future Positive, Kibo Ventures, FJLabs, Maya Capital and Venture Friends.
Belvo has come up with an API platform that can be used to access and interpret end-user financial data which is capable of building more efficient, inclusive and better financial products in the region. The startup, which was founded in 2019 already boasts connections with over 50 financial institutions and works with over 125 clients in regions like Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. The company boasts names like Jeeves, Rappi, Mobills, Ferratum, and Higo.
Romina Seltzer, SVP, products and innovation, Visa Latin America and the Caribbean told the media, “At Visa, we believe open finance has the potential to unleash great collaboration across all payment’s ecosystem participants, while ultimately driving greater financial inclusion and empowering consumers with more choice in how and where they share their financial data.”
Off late, Visa has been setting its eyes on deals with open finance players after it cancelled its plans to acquire US giant Plaid. Instead, Visa picked up the European platform Tink for €1.8 billion and has also invested in the Australian outfit Basiq. Apart from that, Visa software provider Dock has acquired the Mexican card processor Cacao.
After this acquisition, Dock is the only Brazilian company that offers card issuing, acquiring and banking as a service on a single platform and has onboarded more than 50 clients like Albo, Bnext, Lanapay, Oyster, Kapital, Clip, Rapyd, Billpocket, Jefa, and Tribal to name a few.