A few months Visa Everywhere Initiative in Latin America and the Caribbean launched its third edition with the objective of accelerating commercial engagements between Fintech startups, Visa and its clients through Pilot Programs or Proof of Concepts (POCs). Three Challenges were launched in order to find the most innovative solutions that could transform digital payments and e-commerce. After receiving over 190 submissions, 24 startups were selected to participate in 4 Collaborative Innovation Workshops in Mexico City, Bogota, Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo during August.
With these Workshops, Visa Everywhere Initiative has gone one step forward and innovated by bringing together different stakeholders from the financial ecosystem: startups, banks, merchants and other corporate entities. During the sessions, each startup worked hand-by-hand with Visa and its clients on the solution submitted to one of the 3 challenges through the Experiment Design methodology aiming at identifying the different needs of each player, working together and finding synergies to drive financial innovation.
3 startups were selected from each Workshop, adding up to a total of 12 finalistas that will participate in a 5-week Immersion Program, as well as the final at FINNOSUMMIT Miami by LendIt Fintech. The selected startups are:
- Druber (Origin: Argentina): Currency exchange platform that aims to create a wallet associated to a prepaid card for tourists to used with local currency.
- Facenote (Origin: Argentina): Biometric solution that accepts digital payments through facial recognition.
- Flexio (Origin: Mexico): Loan installments for online purchases with debit card.
- Kublau (Origin: Mexico): Solution that monitors the delivery and activation of credit and debit cards.
- Pagalo (Origin: Guatemala): Digital tool for startups, e-commerce platforms and entrepreneurs to accept payments with credit and debit card.
- Pareto (Origin: Argentina): Digital loyalty program that offers services such as segmented discounts based on client profile or business type.
- Peiky (Origin: Colombia): E-commerce tool that manages the complete sales cycle through social media.
- Tiendapp (Origin: Colombia): Virtual platform for small grocery stores to implement digital payments, providing formality, security and trust.
- Zinobe (Origin: Colombia): Automatized platform that enables payment collection, processing and data analysis to take more efficient decisions.
- DinDin (Origin: Brazil): Digital bank offering B2B2C solutions focused on financial inclusion such as transfers without banking details.
- ZroBank (Origin: Brazil): Digital bank blockchain based and cryptocurrency friendly. Zrobank has 2 products: Zro Pay – payment solution; and Zro Wallet – digital wallet for bank transactions.
- Zen Finance (Origin: Brazil): First Fintech as a service in Brazil developing customized financial products (wallet, credit and rewards) to create more value for customers.
Each Workshop has demonstrated how we can achieve unexpected solutions once we leave our comfort zone, break traditional barriers and open ourselves to collaborate with all type of stakeholders in the ecosystem. Passion, talent, synergies, and opportunities were just a few of the keywords mentioned during the Workshops, showcasing the exciting momentum that the Fintech sector is undergoing in the region and how working together is the way to achieve solutions that transform the financial industry. On December 4, the startup finalists will present their collaboration proposals during FINNOSUMMIT Miami by LendIt Fintech, where one of them will be named as Overall Winner and obtain USD $50,000.
