{"id":2725,"date":"2020-09-22T11:14:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T17:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/?p=2725"},"modified":"2020-09-24T11:17:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T17:17:57","slug":"jpmorgan-backed-brazil-fintech-plans-to-expand-in-u-s-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/jpmorgan-backed-brazil-fintech-plans-to-expand-in-u-s-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"JPMorgan-Backed Brazil Fintech Plans to Expand in U.S., Mexico."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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BLOOMBERG<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FitBank Pagamentos Eletronicos SA, a Brazilian fintech backed by JPMorgan Chase & Co., plans to open a U.S. office in the first half of 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The payment-services firm, which has more than 100 clients in Brazil, is also expecting to start operations in Mexico, Peru and Colombia sometime next year, according to Chief Executive Officer Otavio Farah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Payment technology \u201cdoesn\u2019t vary much from nation to nation,\u201d Farah said in a virtual interview from FitBank\u2019s office in Sao Paulo. \u201cWe can really go global, but first we are prioritizing nations where we already have demand from clients.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazilian fintechs are growing outside Brazil and challenging Latin America\u2019s highly concentrated financial system. In one example, Nu Pagamentos SA, a seven-year-old company that\u2019s grown into the world\u2019s biggest standalone digital bank, purchased Durham, North Carolina-based software-consulting firm Cognitect Inc. in July after launching credit cards in Mexico in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

FitBank, whose clients include banks, financial-technology companies and non-financial firms, is partnering with JPMorgan to go global. The New York-based bank said in July it bought a minority stake in the fintech through its strategic-investment unit, giving Renata Vilanova Lobo, JPMorgan\u2019s head of wholesale payments for Brazil, a seat on the board. FitBank also provides services to the U.S. bank in Brazil, which Farah declined to specify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other investors on FitBank\u2019s board are Marcelo Maisonnave, a founder of XP Inc. who left that company in 2014, and Alejandro Vollbrechthausen, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.\u2019s former CEO for Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fewer Hurdles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

FitBank was started in 2015, when innovations such as cloud computing and smartphones were already well-entrenched, so it didn\u2019t have to overcome \u201churdles to adjust older systems to the new realities,\u201d Farah said. FitBank\u2019s open platform is capable of securely controlling and analyzing payment flows, identifying and correcting problems quickly and reducing the need for many back-office jobs, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total transactions handled by the company per month doubled to about 1 billion reais ($183 million) from 500 million reais just before the Covid pandemic began, according to Farah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil\u2019s central bank has been trying to fuel competition by forcing banks and fintechs to share client and product information through a so-called open-banking platform. It also created Pix, an instant-payments open platform. Farah says both changes will drive more business to FitBank, which has been expanding its team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was very challenging, because I had to use virtual meetings to hire 25 people I didn\u2019t know and send to their homes a 5,000-real computer,\u201d Farah said, adding that the firm plans to boost its 150-person workforce to about 200 people by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farah said he\u2019s now back working in the office and inviting employees to join him. That will help create a company culture and promote casual interactions that spur creativity, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the home office is our future at all,\u201d he said, adding that for now he\u2019s leaving the choice up to his employees.Cristiane Lucchesi & Felipe Marques. (2020). JPMorgan-Backed Brazil Fintech Plans to Expand in U.S., Mexico. USA. BLOOMBERG.<\/em> Recuperado de <\/strong>https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2020-09-22\/jpmorgan-backed-brazil-fintech-plans-to-expand-in-u-s-mexico<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BLOOMBERG FitBank Pagamentos Eletronicos SA, a Brazilian fintech backed by JPMorgan Chase & Co., plans to open a U.S. office in the first half of 2021.  The payment-services firm, which has more than 100 clients in Brazil, is also expecting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2727,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/2727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accesstomexico.mx\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}