Argentina’s fast-evolving Fintech sector now includes more than 300 firms that currently employ around 15,000 workers. During this year, the nation’s financial technology ecosystem is expected to create over 5,600 new roles, which indicates that the Fintech industry is set to experience steady growth and adoption. This, according to the latest data from Cámara Argentina de Fintech (the Argentine Chamber of Fintech).
The findings of this research study, published earlier this year, reveal that every 1 in 5 or 20% of all Argentina-based Fintechs were launched in just the past year, indicating that the accelerated growth has come during the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2017 and 2020, direct employment in the South American country’s Fintech industry increased at a rate of 40% YoY.
Even though there have been considerable socioeconomic challenges due to macroeconomic issues in the country as well as difficulties due to the COVID-19 crisis, the Fintech space in Argentina achieved steady growth in the last year. These developments have been supported by the rise in digital or online wallets along with increased usage of payment aggregators (due to the global digital commerce boom). This, according to statements shared with Bnamericas by Marcelo Bastante, a financial services analyst.
A research study, released in February 2021, reveals that two-thirds or over 65% of banked Argentina residents reported increasing their use of online wallets following the COVID outbreak.
Mobility restrictions, enforced nationwide after the Coroanvirus crisis began, have led to a rise in digital commerce transactions in the South American nation. According to the study from Minsait, the digital dispersal of government assistance payments led to around 6.5 million Argentina consumers downloading and using digital wallets.
Mercado Pago managed to top the list of most frequently downloaded digital payments and e-commerce solutions. Meanwhile, Mercado Libre, saw about 3.5 million downloads, and Cuenta DNI, and Uala reported 2 million users each.
As covered in May 2021, ADiLA Research Studio, the new business division of Axxiome (a global solutions provider for the financial services sector focusing on advisory in banking, complexity reduction and analytics), had published a second study on UX (user experience) when working with Fintech solution providers and with banks in Argentina.
In this second paper, researchers and analysts evaluated the UX of less-known capabilities like investments, personal finance management (PFM), customer service and account closing.
Ignacio E. Carballo, Director Ecosystem Fintech and Digital Banking at UCA, notes that in the first edition, they had already presented what ADiLA research offers as a company and service provider.
Carballo added that they’ve covered the challenges of updating, in such a “dizzying” or fast-evolving market. He pointed out that it may be challenging to keep up with everything since Fintech apps keep updating their services very quickly.
While commenting on PFM, Carballo explained that a personal finance manager makes it easier to manage the household and small business accounting by “grouping all transactions carried out in different categories.”
He pointed out that very few companies provide such services in Argentina and they’re mainly available only “in-app.”
