Belvo, an Open Finance data and payments platform based in Latin America, and Plata, a recently authorised digital bank in Mexico, have entered into a technology partnership to simplify credit origination and collections. The collaboration integrates Belvo's employment data access and bank direct debit solutions into Plata's credit card approval process, enabling real-time decisioning and automated repayment collection.
Addressing Mexico's credit access gap
The partnership is positioned against a persistent structural challenge in Mexico's financial system. According to data from Mexico's National Survey of Financial Inclusion (ENIF) and INEGI, fewer than 35% of the adult population holds a formal credit card, despite the country being one of the region's larger economies. A primary obstacle is the difficulty institutions face in verifying the creditworthiness of applicants with limited credit histories or variable income, a population that includes many informally employed workers and those without digital payroll records.
Through Belvo's platform, Plata can access official employment data automatically and with user consent, enabling it to verify an applicant's salary, employment stability, and professional history within seconds. The integration replaces a document-upload process that previously took days with a procedure resolved in minutes.
Employment data and direct debit close the credit lifecycle
The technical architecture addresses two stages of the credit lifecycle. On origination, Belvo's employment data integration allows Plata to conduct automated income verification, reducing reliance on manual documentation. On the repayment side, Belvo's bank direct debit solution enables credit card instalments to be collected automatically from a customer's payroll or savings account.
For Plata, the direct debit mechanism is intended to reduce delinquency rates and lower operating costs associated with collections. For customers, automated repayment reduces the risk of missed payments and associated fees. A company official at Plata noted that the goal is to offer 'fairer approvals and frictionless payment processes', with the technology designed to assess an applicant's economic situation comprehensively.
The production rollout followed a certification phase and testing period that concluded at the end of January 2026, after which Plata began scaling its query volumes through Belvo's infrastructure.
Broader implications for Mexico's fintech sector
The deployment is part of a wider shift in Mexico's financial technology sector towards Open Finance models that draw on alternative data sources to evaluate creditworthiness. The partnership also points to a potential future use case: the application of tax data to assess SME financing needs. SMEs represent 99% of Mexico's economic units and face a financing gap that is proportionally larger than that affecting individuals.
Belvo, founded in May 2019 and backed by investors including Visa, Citi, Kaszek, and YCombinator, currently serves more than 150 clients across Brazil and Mexico, including banks, credit providers, insurance companies, and payment services providers. The company has received a total of USD 71 million in investment to date. Plata received authorisation to operate as a full-service digital bank in Mexico ahead of this partnership.
