The real Amazon Bank is being built from the ground up in LatAm 🇦🇷🏦; The Private Markets are in a consolidation period 💸; Apple overtakes the smartphone crown in the US, & why it can be huge 📲

Good Morning FinTech, 5 September

Good day Everyone,

And happy Monday! Today’s issue is so hot and thrilling that I almost published the draft version accidentally… 😬 Why? Well, because today we’re looking at the real Amazon Bank that is being built from the ground up in LatAm (& why it’s the region’s Next BIG thing in FinTech), the Private Markets that are in a consolidation period right now (& a few big leaders emerging), and Apple that just overtook the smartphone crown in the US (& why it can be huge. hint: it’s about the Apple Bank). Let’s jump straight into the fascinating stuff:

The real Amazon Bank is being built from the ground up in Latin America 🇦🇷🏦

A big launch 🚀 Two weeks ago I’ve talked about Argentina-based e-commerce company Mercado Libre - also known as the Amazon of Latin America - which launched its own digital currency in Brazil, with plans for it to extend throughout the rest of Latin America.

This development is important beyond just democratizing financial inclusion in LatAm, so let’s take a second look.

A refresher ♻️ The digital currency, Mercado Coin, is now available to Mercado Libre’s 80M users in Brazil with plans to extend the currency to other Latin American countries soon.

Users can now make purchases on Mercado Libre with the coin and can receive the coin as cash back rewards on purchases. The currency will at first be tradable only on Mercado Libre’s digital wallet, Mercado Pago. The initial price of the coin is $0.10.

Digital payments company Ripio is providing custody and trading services for the currency.

Why is this important? 🤔 This development yet again proves that Mercado Pago is the region’s Next BIG thing in FinTech. More importantly, it also signifies that the real Amazon Bank is being built from the ground up in Latin America. Here’s more on that + the takeaway: