Visa makes investment in Open Finance platform Belvo

Visa has made an investment in Latin American Open Finance API platform Belvo as part of a recently-announced strategic partnership between the two companies to develop new open finance capabilities in Latin America.

Global payments company Visa is one of the investors that participated in Belvo’s $43 million Series A funding round.

With this latest investment, the company joins existing investors in Belvo, including Kaszek Ventures, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Future Positive, Maya Capital, and FJ Labs.

Belvo has received a total of $56 million in investment to date.

Pablo Viguera, Belvo’s co-founder and co-CEO, said: “As we’ve built our product and team and grown as a company, we’re now entering a new phase where market expansion and collaboration with several strategic partners is key to providing reliable and secure capabilities at scale to our clients.

“That’s why we’re excited to continue working with a strategic partner and investor such as Visa, with whom we share a common long-term vision to enable not only fintech companies but also larger enterprises and financial institutions to embrace open finance models and leverage financial data in Latin America.”

Through its API platform, Belvo provides connections with more than 50 financial institutions and works with over 125 clients, including fintech and financial companies in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia like Jeeves, Rappi, Mobills, Ferratum and Higo.

“At Visa, we believe Open Finance has the potential to unleash great collaboration across all payments ecosystem participants, while ultimately driving greater financial inclusion and empowering consumers with more choice in how and where they share their financial data,” added Romina Seltzer, senior vice president of products and innovation for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean.

“Looking back at our core, we have been an open payments player since our creation, more than 60 years ago, opening and facilitating interoperable payments for everyone.”

Seltzer said: “This reflects our commitment to fostering digital inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean region, where we are focused on designing and deploying innovative and accessible digital payment solutions that help individuals, businesses and governments to participate in the digital economy, enabling them to thrive socially and economically.”