What's driving the fintech boom in Latin America?
The region is proof of what happens when regulation, technology, and demand all pull in the same direction.
When David Vélez launched Nubank in 2013, he wasn’t trying to build a $35 billion fintech giant. He just wanted Brazilians to stop wasting half their day in sweaty bank queues, paying absurd fees for basic services. Back then, getting a debit card or small loan often meant a forest’s worth of paperwork and a test of patience most people couldn’t afford.
Fast-forward a decade, and more than 100 million people, 57% of Brazil’s adults, now bank with Nubank from their phones. We like to credit great design and no-fee accounts for that kind of rise. Fair. But a scale like this needs more than a slick app.
It happened because Brazil decided to build rules and rails that let fintechs grow fast without getting tied up in red tape. And we've seen that mindset catch on. Across Latin America, regulators ripped up the messy, state-by-state approach you see in the U.S. and went with a single, streamlined playbook, one set of national rules, clear licensing, and instant payment rails that any regulated player can plug into.
So far, the results speak for themselves
In just three years, the number of fintech platforms in the region doubled, from around 1,166 in 2018 to nearly 2,482 in 2021 and now, 3,069 in 2024 (via WEForum). Not because founders suddenly got lucky, but they finally had a clear runway and a market that was practically begging for better options.
And that market is huge. Around 70% of people in Latin America are unbanked or underbanked, meaning no safe place to save, no affordable credit, and no simple way to pay for things. Centralized regulation is closing that gap in ways people feel in their daily lives. Mobile wallets, QR payments, and instant transfers, for instance, now make up about 60% of consumer spending.
You can also see it in the small stuff. Brazil’s Pix handled 42 billion transactions in 2023, each settling in seconds. Mexico’s SPEI, Argentina’s Transferencias 3.0, and Colombia’s upcoming Breve want to make instant payments feel normal, like they should have been all along.
For gig workers, that means wrapping up a shift and seeing money in your account before you even take off your work shoes. For migrant workers using startups like Félix Pago, it means keeping 10–15% of their pay that used to disappear in transfer fees.
This is what makes LatAm stand out when you stack it against regions where fintech growth is harder. In Africa, for example, fintechs face a maze of 54 different regulatory frameworks, one for every country, while compliance can eat up 5–10% of revenue. Add these to the weak infrastructure and scarce capital, and one starts to see how scaling across borders can be a nightmare.
In the U.S., it’s an opposite problem, with too many overlapping federal and state rules. Expanding nationally can mean dealing with the OCC, CFPB, SEC, and 50 separate state laws, kind of like playing regulatory whack-a-mole.
Kelechi Edeh
Overall, we're seeing the LatAm region still refining its playbook. Chile’s new Fintech Act is pushing Open Finance. Colombia’s sandbox lets companies experiment without triggering a full-blown market crisis. Peru even imported India’s UPI system, something that would be unthinkable in the U.S., where payment infrastructure is guarded like a trade secret.
And that’s why I think this isn’t just a LatAm story. It’s proof of what happens when regulation, technology, and demand all pull in the same direction. The centralized approach has given fintechs room to scale, raise capital, and solve problems that traditional banks left to rot. It’s turned homegrown players into global case studies.
Sure, the balance is fragile. Push too hard with regulation, and the momentum could stall. But for now, it’s working. And when you see millions of people get access to the financial system for the first time, it’s hard not to wonder: if they figured it out here, what’s everyone else waiting for?
