According to Statista, fintech in Latin America (LatAm) suffered in 2023, with less than $2billion invested in fintech ventures – a drastic drop from 2021’s value of $6billion. Nonetheless, in the face of this hardship, fintechs have still continued to emerge and find success in the region, and across 2024, investment levels surged back up over $2billion again. With the future of fintech looking optimistic in 2025, Em Conversa looks to explore how the LatAm region can prosper once more.
The Latin American payments sector has been dominated by the success of Pix. In fact, according to a report by Matera, an instant payments, QR code, and digital ledger technology firm, Pix transactions exceeded six billion monthly in Q4’24. It is, therefore, no surprise that other countries in the region are looking to emulate this success, the latest being Colombia as it announces Bre-B.
Bre-B will reduce transaction costs, eliminate waiting times, optimise cash flow, and improve the overall payment experience. The use of keys and QR codes make the technology accessible to unbanked people and businesses while it adheres to the highest security standards, promoting innovation, financial inclusion and minimising fraud. With an initial launch date set for September 2025, experienced firms in the region are joining forces to help ensure the real-time payments platform is successful.
One organisation helping in this preparation phase is Dock, the banking and digital payments provider in Brazil and Pix participant. Having announced a partnership with Credibanco, the electronic payments creator in Colombia, we spoke to Dock’s CEO, Antonio Soares, to understand how real-time payments are developing in Colombia and LatAm more generally.
How is Bre-B building on the success of Pix in LatAm to accelerate financial inclusion?
Every country is implementing or thinking of implementing real-time payments because it allows government and financial players and participants to deliver other rails for payments. In Colombia’s case, the solution is Bre-B. Real-time payments are a payment rail that is disintermediated: a person is simply paying money to another person, or a person paying another company. Technology is helping to remove the friction and number of players needed to complete a transaction.
There is a lot of space for financial inclusion in Latin America, especially given how much people still rely on cash. Banking can be very concentrated in some countries in the region and it is especially in these places that real-time payments can be effective.
This is what we saw in Brazil. When we launched PIX in Brazil, the population was ready to use it because regulatory changes had already made it accessible. It was simple to open an account and and companies like Nubank and Neon incentivised its use.
When you go to to other countries in Latin America, they have a different reality than the one we faced in Brazil. In Brazil, we were talking about cards, banking inclusion, because our fintech ecosystem was at that level. This is not the case in other countries, but this isn’t a bad thing.
Countries like Mexico and Colombia which are launching these new real-time payment platforms do not need to deal with these issues as fintech ecosystems are in place to leapfrog those challenges. These ecosystems already have the capabilities to attract a lot of fintechs to their respected regions. This real-time payments influence isn’t only being seen in LatAm though – its impact is also being witnessed in India and China.
How are Dock and Credibanco working together to power the implementation of Bre-B?
We were founded in Brazil but have since expanded our business internationally. This began three years ago when we turned our attention to our global platform. To spread our vision of financial empowerment across the globe, we launched a new system called Dock One.
This global platform offers a range of capabilities, including card services, real-time payments, and core banking functionalities, and this is the platform we are using in Colombia alongside Credibanco. While this is a technology that we will roll out globally, for each region we enter, we need to tailor our plugins to work within the country’s regulatory frameworks.
Dock One is filled with expertise from our work in Brazil, and using this expertise alongside the technical capabilities of the platform is what will allow us to help Credibanco accelerate its implementation in Colombia and beyond.
We have a lot of regulatory experience dealing with finances in Brazil and when you look at Colombia, of course they’re different, but they do share some similarities. The Central Bank of Brazil and the Central Bank of Colombia collaborate to ensure they are increasing competition while ensuring inclusion. Some key differences that we need to account for though include the fact that the entire Brazilian ecosystem is 100 per cent centralised by the Central Bank. However, this is not the case in Colombia.
In Colombia, there are a variety of major players and some of them are decentralised. However, this isn’t necessarily a regulatory difference, rather, it is an architectural difference. Eventually, it is likely the Central Bank of Brazil will share its strategy to centralised success.
Will other regions like Colombia ever catch up to Brazil?
Technology will definitely help firms catch up. When tech works in a country like Brazil, which has a population of 250 million, it will likely work in a smaller region too. It is usually easier to scale down, than to scale up.
Additionally, other countries in LatAm do not have high levels of card penetration like Brazil and this will help advance the adoption of technology and real-time payments. Cards are a traditional user experience which many people rely on and are reluctant to give up. However, without this reliance on cards, adopting real-time payments is much easier.
We must also note the infrastructure differences between Brazil and its neighbouring countries. In Brazil there are extremely high levels of phone and internet penetration – this is not always the case in places like Mexico and Colombia. Changing this trend in infrastructure will be a key in the adoption of real-time payments. But this will only happen once consumers see the benefits of using a technology like this, and have a desire to acquire it.
Nonetheless, due to the disintermediated nature of real-time payments and the variety of payment avenues it opens up, it is likely these benefits will be appreciated and sought after.
What are the main factors driving financial inclusion in LatAm?
In addition to real-time payments, we’re seeing embedded finance play a huge role in making financial services more accessible. For example, when you have a transportation company that works with truck drivers, they will like have a lot of information on them too. These companies know the drivers better than both digital and traditional banks do. Using embedded finance technology, the transportation company can deliver a tailored service built specifically for truck drivers.
The same can be seen with iFood and Uber. In both instances, the companies dealing with these individuals has a better grasp on what the members look like, and consequently can offer a better personalised service than a traditional, standard offering from a bank.
What are some other payment trends we’re seeing in the region?
There is a lot of space for innovation in the B2B sector. The evolution of payments in Brazil has primarily been B2C and P2P, but despite these new products, the highest number of transactions remain in the B2B market. There is a lot of room for new, digitised offerings.
Another exciting payments development we’re seeing is in the cross-border market. Traditional cross-border offerings have been slow to digitise so there’s a lot of room for development here too. First and foremost though, in Latin America, we need to prioritise financial inclusion within the region, before looking at cross-border.
