Now, Brazil has over 50 million digital wallet accounts offered by more than 100 companies, with banking apps backed by SoftBank, China’s Tencent and others. Customers can shop, open no-fee checking accounts and take out loans using digital wallets from retailers like Lojas Americanas, ecommerce platform Mercadolibre and even small football team Avai.
These apps challenge the dominance of an initial wave of online banks like SoftBank-backed Banco Inter and Tencent-backed Nubank as they seek to grab a piece of Brazil’s USD 2.24 trillion of banking assets.
The wave of startups are partly the fruit of central bank regulatory changes aimed at boosting competition in a banking sector in which five leaders hold 82% of total assets. Moreover, nonbank businesses tend to offer more complex products like loans in partnership with traditional lenders.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now