Citi Ventures has become the latest major company to invest in Mexico City’s open finance API platform Belvo.
Citi Ventures has reportedly joined Visa as an investor in Belvo, which finalized a $43 million Series A investment round back in June 2021. The investment also sees Belvo work cooperatively with Citi’s Mexican division, Citibanamex in order to support open banking adoption in the nation.
As covered, Belvo has developed an API platform that it claims may be used to access and interpret users’ financial data in order to create better, more efficient and more inclusive financial products in Latin America.
Established in 2019, the firm currently has connections with more than 60 financial institutions and works closely with more than 125 customers such as fintech and financial companies based in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia like Jeeves, Rappi, Mobills, Ferratum, and Higo.
Pablo Viguera, co-CEO, Belvo, stated:
“This investment is yet another great sign of the increasing collaborative efforts that are taking place between fintechs and traditional financial players in Latin America in the context of Open Finance. As regulation quickly moves forward in countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, we believe that working together with financial institutions is key to bringing the benefits of these new models to more and more businesses and end-users, and that these collaborations will have a great impact on increasing access to better financial services across the region.”
Sinead O´Connor, corporate director, consumer banking, Citibanamex, remarked:
“Citi Ventures’ investment in Belvo will get Citibanamex closer to Belvo, accelerating our path to develop Open Banking capabilities while creating omnichannel, and deeply personalized, digital experiences and products for the benefit of our customers.”
As reported in June 2022, Belvo, the Open Finance API platform in Latin America, received authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) for the organization and operation of an Institución de Fondos de Pago Electrónico (IFPE).
Through this license, Belvo will be able “to offer its clients in Mexico services to process and issue bank-to-bank payments through its API platform.” The company has been “working on this project for more than a year and has now received regulatory approval.”
The use cases that Belvo plans to develop “include different payment solutions that are in high demand in the market.”
Pablo Viguera, co-CEO and co-founder of Belvo, added:
“Receiving this endorsement from the regulator puts us closer to offering payment initiation solutions in Latin America. There’s a huge potential in the region to make payment rails more efficient, in a similar way to what Open Banking regulation has allowed in Europe. And this is a key step to materialize our vision of offering a complete platform of Open Finance solutions, ranging from financial data access and enrichment to payment initiation.”