Boosting the fintech ecosystem, from Miami, the United States, Visa and Finnovista announced on August 30 to Cointelegraph in Spanish, what are the 12 finalist startups of the Visa Everywhere Initiative competition in its third edition for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
Visa Everywhere Initiative is a global innovation program that connects with startups that solve tomorrow’s challenges, boost their product proposals and offer visionary solutions to Visa’s network of partners.
For the first time, the competition was based on specific challenges to be solved, with the aim of finding and empowering Fintech startups in growth stages of Latin America and the Caribbean with the ability to break into the financial services industry and accelerate trade agreements of the company with Visa and its customers, through Pilot Programs and Concept Tests (PoCs).
This year, more than 190 startups in the region registered to participate, and among them, the 24 most outstanding projects were selected to participate in four Collaborative Innovation Workshops in Mexico City, Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo.
During each workshop, the six startups participating in each of them worked together with Visa and its customers (banks, shops and digital providers) in the solution they proposed, and using the Experiment Design methodology they explored the possibilities of collaboration, and either through a Pilot Program or a Proof of Concept. At the end of the four workshops, three startups were selected, totaling the total of 12 that will participate in the Immersion Program and the final of the Visa Everywhere Initiative LAC at FINNOSUMMIT Miami by LendIt Fintech.
These are the 12 finalist startups:
Flexio (Mexico): Platform that offers installment loans for online purchases through a debit card.
Kublau (Mexico): Solution that monitors the sending and activation of credit or debit cards.
Pagalo (Guatemala): Tool aimed at startups, e-commerce platforms and entrepreneurs that enables the acceptance of credit and debit card payments from anywhere in the world.
Peiky (Colombia): An e-commerce tool that allows you to manage the sales cycle through social networks.
Tiendapp (Colombia): Virtual platform for small food stores to implement electronic payments, providing formality, security and efficiency.
Zinobe (Colombia): Automated platform that allows payment collection, processing and data analysis to make more efficient decisions.
Druber (Argentina): Currency exchange platform that seeks to create a wallet associated with a prepaid card for tourists to use the card with local currency.
Pareto SA (Argentina): Digital loyalty program that offers services such as discounts segments by customer characteristic and nature of business, personalization of notifications or associate existing loyalty programs.
Facenote (Argentina): Biometric solution for the acceptance of digital payments with facial recognition in shops.
DinDin (Brazil): Digital bank that offers B2B2C solutions focused on financial inclusion such as transfers without the need for bank data.
ZroBank (Brazil): Digital bank with blockchain base and that accepts cryptocurrencies. Zrobank has 2 products: Zro Pay – payment solution, and Zro Wallet – digital wallet for bank transactions.
Zen Finance (Brazil): First Fintech as a service in Brazil that develops customized financial products (wallet, credit and rewards) to generate more value for customers.
The finalists will work in a five-week immersion program with different Visa business units, and will attend FINNOSUMMIT Miami by LendIt Fintech, where the winning startup will be chosen.
“We know that the key to achieving expansion in access and acceptance of digital payments is the collaboration with the best Fintech in the region”, said Arnoldo J. Reyes, vice president of Digital Alliances and Fintech for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean.
“With the Visa Everywhere Initiative we are committed to identifying the most powerful solutions, together to accelerate the adoption of digital payments, promote greater digital inclusion and foster the new era of trade, at scale. We are very excited to see the diversity of the 12 finalists, from facial recognition solutions for digital payments to comprehensive solutions for small business management”, he concluded.
For his part, Andrés Fontao, Managing Partner of Finnovista explained: “We have come a great way here, by the hand of the Visa Everywhere Initiative, and we are more than committed to creating innovative collaboration schemes between startups and the industry”.
Since 2015 the Visa Everywhere Initiative program has reached five continents and 75 countries, and has been attended by more than 4,000 startups. In Latin America, the program has successfully convened more than 800 startups since its launch in 2017, helping to expand the payments ecosystem with emerging talents.
Also published on Medium.