The ‘Amazon of Latin America,’ could be region’s Next BIG thing in FinTech💥; Crypto funding falls in H1 2021. To worry or not to worry? 🤔; Subscription Economy sees FinTech in its future 👀
Good Morning FinTech, 19 July
Good morning Everyone,
And happy Tuesday! Today’s issue is undoubtedly the most interesting one this week as we’re looking into the Amazon of LatAm and why it could be the region’s next big thing in FinTech (the same way AWS is for Amazon!), crypto funding that fell in the first half of this year (should we worry?), and why subscription economy and FinTech have a match (it could be huge!). So let’s just straight into the awesome stuff:
The ‘Amazon of Latin America,’ could be the region’s Next BIG thing in FinTech💥
The money💰 Last week, I briefly covered that banking giant Goldman Sachs has loaned as much as $233M to Latin America’s online marketplace Mercado Libre for its expansion.
What I didn’t tell you in the short take was what this money is going to be used for. Apparently, the e-commerce heavyweight is looking to grow its financial services presence in the region. In fact, it could be the region’s next big thing in FinTech, so it’s definitely worth a closer look.
More on this 👉 Mercado Pago, which is Mercado Libre’s FinTech arm, plans to use $106M to expand its credit portfolio in Brazil while setting aside $127M for its Mexican operations. Why it is doing that? A massive market is at stake.
E-commerce to Banking 🏦 Mercado Libre is often called The Amazon of Latin America. There’s a reason for that since the company generates massive sales and boasts a vast active user base of over 80M, mainly from its e-commerce operations.
When your customer base is that big, it’s obvious that you should be looking at the different ways how you can add more value and effectively - diversify and increase your revenue. Mercado Libre is doing just that and is now targeting financial services as the next growth frontier:
Very recently, it partnered with Western Union on US-Mexico remittances. And this is a massive corridor you just cannot ignore.
Citi loaned the firm $375M in November to grow its credit arm in Brazil and Mexico.
And now Goldman is adding another $233M for their FinTech operations.
Why this is important? 🤔 What AWS is to Amazon, Mercado Pago could soon be for Mercado Libre. In fact, it might be the region’s Next BIG thing in FinTech. Here’s the takeaway: