Name: Payments Without Borders: Scaling Across LATAM–U.S. Corridors
Uploaded: 2026-03-31T15:16:10.634Z
Duration: 1 h 8 s
Description: Payments Without Borders: Scaling Across LATAM–U.S. Corridors

Transcript for "Payments Without Borders: Scaling Across LATAM–U.S. Corridors": Hello everyone, and welcome to today's webinar in partnership with Spreedly. Today we're diving into optimizing payments across borders in an increasingly complex world. I'm Ella Wilkinson from FinTech Magazine and our title today is The Future of Global Payments, Unlocking Cross Border Growth Across LATAM US Corridors. And the question now isn't just how do we expand internationally, it's how do we do it efficiently, intelligently, and at scale. Helping me unpack all of this is an incredible panel of experts. A leader at the heart of LATAM's fintech ecosystem, Alejandro Slatopolski, co founder at Miami Fintech Club, a payments infrastructure expert focused on enabling global scale and flexibility. Jose Lu, GM, LATAM and APAC at Spreedly. A voice representing real world merchant and network experience in a high growth payment environment. Rafael, CEO at Modo and a leader driving regional payments enablement across Latam, Jamie Domingo, Chief Revenue Officer at Kushke. Great to have you all here and thank you so much for joining us today. To get us started I'd love if each of you could just briefly introduce yourself, give us a little bit of background on your companies and share in one sentence what payment excellence looks like in a cross border world. Jose, you're actually on my screen right now. So let's start with you. Okay, good morning, everyone. I am Jose Lu. I've been in the payments industry for the last fifteen plus years as of now. Nowadays leading a go to market for Latin and APAC regions are Spritly, which is an open payments platform enabling commerce worldwide. To your question, what does payments excellence look like in a cross border world today? I think my answer is that this should be safe, fast and frictionless. Back to you. Perfect. Rafael, if I throw to you next. Well, hello everybody. I'm Rafael So to at Moto in Argentina. I've been in in fintech for the past ten years in Wala, an Argentine bank, a new bank. For the past five years in Motto. Motto is a company, a fintech owned by banks in Argentina. We do payments, in store QR, NFC, online benefits and offers. We do online open banking and all kind of different things to help banks compete in digital payments. Happy to be here. And to your question, more than a sentence have a word, which is integration. You do have to do a lots of integrations to enable payments in Latin America. We work with people like, Joselo at Spritly, to help us on that, and I wish you all good luck on that front. Fabulous. Alejandra, you're next on my screen. Good. I'm Alejandra Zlada Polski. I'm the co founder of the Miami Fintech Club and also of a firm named Scalto. And for the last twenty three years, I've been dedicated to helping financial service institutions, wealth managers, and fintechs basically translate their positioning and grow in the market. I've always been in the wealth management financial services corridor of Miami and LatAm. And to your question about payments, I think that the evolution of payments have has been well, for the LATAM corridor, has always been about remittances, of course. But nowadays, and a little bit in line with what Rafael said, is more about becoming an embedded solution into the daily lives of the users. So it's not about the solution itself, but how seamlessly it integrates into the lives of the final users, I think. Brilliant. Yeah, it's all about making it as easy as possible, isn't it? Yes. So last but not least, Jamie. Hi, everybody. So Jaime Domingo, I've been in payments just thirty years now, so I've been pretty much everywhere, Pfizer, Visa, Lavon, EVO, then bought by Global, now CRO of Kushki. And Kushki, we're a company founded by Equatorians. We're actually Miami based, we provide a sentence of electronic payments for retailers, merchants in the most part. So we operate in a number of markets, actually five. So that is Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile looking to expand further. So that is very much our core. I think the key, it has been mentioned, you know, integration, making sure you do it simpler. I think a lot of it has to do with that, right? Everybody wants to take like new payment methods, everybody wants to expand and make what they do more efficient, but it's very complex. So I think that's where partnering with the right people makes a lot of sense because if you start integrating everything you've got, end up no time, right? So it's just going to take you forever. Yeah, and we'll touch on that a little bit later. I'm also very sorry I've been calling you the British version of how your name is spelled, which why gave me. So I'll be better. So let's jump in with you first, Alejandra. And that is why LATAM payments are accelerating right now. So from your vantage point, why are LATAM US payments, you know, such a focal point right now? And what do you think has changed in the last few years here? Well, I think what has accelerated is the LatAm fintech focus. The LatAm US corridor, as it's called in remittances, has always been huge. You know, it's one of the biggest corridors in the world in terms of the flow of remittances and money in general. So that's not new. What's new is that in LATAM, and everybody here can attest to that because they are all experts in in fintech, Latin American markets are way ahead of The US market in fintech. Latin American markets adopted FinTech solutions much faster than what The US did. All of the B2C solutions in payments and processing were much faster to be deployed and adopted in Latin American countries because they've been solving real problems. Right? They've been solving real client pains that have been pushing for that growth. So during the pandemic, we saw a huge, you know, influx of VC money into fintech solutions, and that has been also driving the growth. And now there is a consolidation of the industry happening that, you know, it slowed down on the on the investment side, but it's still it's still happening. And I think it is driven by, you know, the true need for payment solutions in the local markets. If you see Rafael is in Argentina and Argentina, like, the adoption of QR codes for payments, that's like that has been for how long, Rafael? Like, I don't know. But it's been For the past five in the past five years, it it exploded. And today, the majority of in in store payments are with QRs. Right. And the digital payment space grew so much. The the adoption of crypto grew that much faster than in The US too, because it solves for a problem of the of counter how do call it? Make it for the for the currency instability, the stablecoins are solving for that in the local markets. So those are all things that are really not felt in The US and that have driven the adoption of fintech solutions in LatAm. So I think that that's that's mostly what has been driving all of the new technology payment adoptions in LatAm. Brilliant. So obviously, LatAm is a collection of loads of different payment ecosystems. How difficult is that actually to bring all of those together? Well, I don't think you do. You don't bring them together. Like, each country has very different regulations, very different cultures, and very different needs. Even we we know when I talk about currency fluctuation, it's a very different story in Argentina than it is in Colombia, for example. Colombia, even if they have a fluctuation of the currency, it's not the same swings that will happen in Argentina. So the pain is not as big. So between the cultural differences, the local players that solve for very specific problems and other factors, I think that each country should be treated truly differently. And that's a challenge when you see entering LatAm as a whole. It's very important. I always say, I work with companies entering The US and expanding into LatAm. And the way that we see it is that we say you don't scale a product, you scale relevance. What does that mean? You wanna grab your product and you wanna say, okay. What is the ecosystem in this new market, and what can my product solve here? That is never gonna be the same problem that it solves in your original country. It's like saying, I'm gonna enter I always tell, like, Latin American entrepreneurs, you wanna enter The US? You don't enter The US ever. Imagine trying to conquer the whole US. You cannot do that. Like, even with the whole money in the whole world, you you don't do that. You enter a market. You enter niche, and you solve for a problem, and then you expand. And it's the same case going down there. Brilliant. That was a very good question and and a very good answer from from Alejandra, meaning, hey, how do we put together, join, bridge different ecosystems of different countries? Right. Could they really talk to each other? Yes. The first answer is yes. It's it's complex. I mean, you are kind of joining to markets, to cultures, to different kind of behaviors. But it is also relevant to mention here that and of course leverage Rafael's presence in this webinar that we are watching some initiatives that are trying to build that bridge. I just read Rafael, you have more information than me, of course, that now with Model you can travel to Brazil, pay there with PIX or something like that. Maybe you can bring more detail. Yeah, because historically the cross border was kind of a monopoly of the of the credit credit card brands. So you can only pay cross border with Visa, Mastercard, Amex. But nowadays, in Latin America, there is a big migration towards pay by bank payments, as you call it, in in The US, right, or account to account. That happens domestically. Now we're facing the challenge to integrate all these systems because people in Peru pay with Yape, people in Brazil pay with PICCs, people in Argentina pay with PCT or Palgo Transferencia, and we're making an effort towards integrating these new methods of of payments that are that are thriving. So we are doing our first steps into integrating our systems Today, as I said, users of Motto can go and scan a QR in Brazil and make a payment or or input the ShavePix, as they call it, and and make a payment. However, we're doing this, taking some shortcuts with some solutions that might not be definite, and there is a there is a a long term intention towards integrating these account to account payments on in the backlog. Right? So the the administrators of these of these systems eventually, we hope that they integrate, like the Central Bank of Brazil that administer PIX with COELSA in Argentina that administers PCT or Banco Creto Peru Banco Creto de Peru in in Peru that administers Yape, we hope that we integrate on the back loans and payments are even more seamless and the cost of that transactions also go go down. That that there there's a long way, but we're we are working towards that, and even so, we're working towards integrating with payments overseas. So we're we're in conversations with European alliances of accounts of payments. We're in conversations with the Chinese payment providers. So, you know, there's a whole new world of of of real time daily payments that we're working towards an integration. And I've mentioned the word integration so many times today, and I will continue to use it. It's going to not sound like a real word by the end of this. It will continue to happen. Just a little perspective of something that Alejandro mentioned, kind of comparing to The US, and I think Rafael touched upon it, from a merchant perspective, okay, not only for just individuals, which obviously is a big part of the pie, Today, accounts for unpaid is about 20% of everything they accept electronically. 65% will be card. And even you have 5% that is managed by what you call cash networks that are actually moving the money electronically, but essentially the transaction is carried out in cash at a point of origin. So that just adds more complexity. And if you think that that 20% is going down you know, with the fixation of the world or you have Breve now kicking in in Colombia, which is or Spain, Mexico, it's all over the place, it's actually growing. So that component of account to account payments in the B2C space is going up as opposed to going down, which is what you probably would expect elsewhere. So, yeah, very complex to try to bring the cross border local, but it's what at least most retailers want, right? Simplify their lives, make sure that they have a single point of integration and the more they can offer. I've never seen a retailer that says, no, don't want to take that payment. They want to take every single payment they want to take. So they want to find somebody that can simplify the world for them and, you know, give them better performance, more acceptance and take everything the customer is going to pay with. So do you need that bridge then? Like, for like a bridge between The US fintech infrastructure and the innovation in LatAm? Definitely, I think that's very important, know, to feed off each other. But I've seen innovations in LatAm that should be making their way to The US. It's just that the main factor that I see in The US is that, for example, the peer to peer payments, it's pretty much from a user perspective, it's pretty much solved with in the retails, you know, we were talking about Sell, Venmo, etcetera. They sort of, like, there is no perceived friction from the user right now. So that stops adoption of new new solutions that even if they're better, there is no as long as you don't feel there is a problem with what you're using right now, you're not gonna change the plastic. In LatAm, in all of the local markets in LatAm, as Jaime was saying, there is that need and there is that push to, hey, we need to innovate, we need to get better, we need to, you know, let's make this more frictionless than it is because there is a there's still a lot that is paper based or cash based or very isolated places where it's needed. Brilliant. So should we move on to real time payments and that consumer expectation that is constantly changing? So I'm going to throw it to you here first, Jose. When companies begin expanding into LATAM, where do they most commonly underestimate that challenge? There are many potential mistakes or underestimations that a company could fall when trying to end the latter market. Of course, for time sake reasons, I'm just gonna focus maybe in two or three. Number one, believe that LATAM is just one single block. Right? So, yeah, that's, that's kind of a big fail if, you think that LATAM is, one region, one single block. Every country is unique in terms of, culture, customer behavior, preferred payment methods, specific market variables, and something as relevant in our industry, which is payments regulation. Right? So regulation is not homogeneous in the region. You have countries which have developed more aligned to world regulation allowing financial institutions and non financial institutions to enter into the financial payment system. You have in some countries something called EDES, Entidades, Ennisodas de Dinero Electronico, which translated into English is electronic money issuers, right? So if you comply with the regulation, you can become an entity that can issue electronic money and play a role in the payments ecosystem in that country. So that's one. I mean, considering LATAM a block is is typically not the way. Number two, well, I already mentioned regulatory complexity. Right? Each country has some regulation. What is allowing one country is not necessarily allowing the other. Let's put it in that simple way. And the third one could be a local payment expectation, right? When you have a business in US and you look around in US, you will see, of course, cards, credit, debit, as the preferred payment method in this country. Right? But when you look down a lot of time, you will find credit and debit is an option, but there are so many options in the market. Right? That people prefer to use instead of a credit or debit. One more time. Many reasons for that specific behavior, but I don't wanna take the time for my colleagues so they can bring also their feedback. Well, I was going to ask actually if there's so many different regulations across the board, how can a company scale? How can a company enter that up even if they do think it's one market and then they get a shock? Simple answer for that. What payment use case you are. What do I mean by that? Coming back to Alejandra, if you are entering LATAM on a cross border P2P, let's say remittances, well, you have to focus on Mexico and some Central American countries. Those are your market. Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico in the first place, that's your key market. That's your key market. That's the strategy you have to buy here because those are the bigger one in terms of volumes. So, I mean, of watching 20 something countries, focus on those solve, learn about the regulation, learn about the culture, payment methods and then plan your strategy there. Well, I agree only partially because one of the things because of this problem of the diversity of Latin America, there have emerged many companies that provide solutions that can enable companies coming from overseas to to enter the the region. So there there, you know, there there are companies that may offer you an integration that would allow you, for example, to collect cash payments in Argentina. So, you know, Netflix is in Argentina, you can pay Netflix with cash. Right? And Netflix don't even I mean, will never see that cash, but they will receive some money in their US account. Okay? So there are shortcut solutions. Eventually, if you become very big in one country, you would notice that those fees that they are charging you are quite high, and there you have the scale already to develop some local collection capacity that would enable you to to to lower those fees. But there are ways to enter the market without having to do all the hard work. Yeah, I agree. I cannot I cannot do advertising here. So I'm not gonna mention any names. So Spritly can help you with some of that. Jose was very humble not to mention that. It's important, sorry, if I may, to realize that just the cross border, like just pretending that things are going to work exactly the same way The US, from a regional perspective is not going to work. So localizing will give you the extra symptoms. It will improve your performance. It will reduce your fraud. But just getting there, it takes some time because of the fragmentation. But just assuming that, oh, I have a simple solution, I'm going to stay here and just pretend everything is going to be cross border payments, you can probably get to market quickly, but you're never going to realize any of the potential that you have in the market. So acceptance rates are going to be 20 points lower. You're going to have higher fraud. You're going to have more fees. We even can have more taxes. So there's a lot of things that you have to consider that you have to simplify it in a way, but then slowly start to localize. And when you localize, you realize more potential. So, you know, I think that's very important. For me, you know, were asking the how and we work with the three main three main points that you wanna address before entering a market. So before entering LatAm, but first, choose a country and ask why. Why you want to enter the market? You know, what's the opportunity there first? How big is it? Or how small and how niche? And what product what problem will you be able to solve in that market that you know that exists? And then adapt like, number two is adapt your product to solve that problem. Because generally, you don't have exactly a problem. You have the infrastructure, you have the solution, you have the idea, but you don't have exactly a product that solves that problem. So adapt the product to the problem that you're solving in that market. And then three, look for partnerships. I think it's very, very, very important to enter markets with partnerships, with somebody that is already local. Don't try and go and, like, make a you know, you don't you don't enter you don't enter a party and just say, hey. I'm here. Just listen to me. You know? Generally, you're inviting invited by somebody else. You can be with a friend. Bye. You know? My friend Jaime invited me to this party, so this is who I am. Right? So I think that partnerships in fintech everywhere, it's not only in LatAm, you know, partnerships are key. So essentially don't reinvent the wheel but you can put some air in the tire. Yeah exactly. So I mean we've covered this actually so I was going to move on to cross border payments but I think I'm just gonna skip to the next question here, and that's Rafael. Where are the biggest friction points that remain in cross border payments? Well, the fact that not all cross border payments are possible. Right? So I'm used to paying with QR in Argentina, and if I go to Peru, I can't. You know? So there there's long that's a long way to go there. Then we still need to solve for scale. What I was mentioning before, we need to work on the backbones. Today, you know, I we we mentioned you user campaign with Moto in in Brazil, but what happens behind, I don't wanna describe. It's it's messy. Okay? It doesn't solve for scale. So we need to work together with all the administrators, the the central banks, you know, there has to be a more formal effort towards an integration as it's as it's taking place right now in Europe, for example, where Visa, MobileIK, and Twins, you know, all those folks are are making an effort for for integration. Then there is also aside from from from these b two c payments, we still need to solve for for p two p in between countries. So remittances is a word that I hate so much. It's so old. Right? Today, it is technologically possible to make just a transfer as you will do to a friend, you know, next in the next block from home. Right? And we still are working with this infrastructure that is so old, but, you know, involves so many players in in the middle. While I could just send money and, you know, someone makes an online clearance and it all works well, and costs go down so much for for the users. So I figure that there are big populations in Mexico that are transferring money sorry, in The US that are transferring money to to Mexico, and somebody's taking so big fees out of that. Right? And the same happens all across the region. Paraguayan sending money to their families from Argentina, You know, again, 10% fees, crazy things, and and crazy procedures, you know, people go into some branch to collect some cash that somebody sent into. So, you know, that is something that we should solve, you know, between banks, with central banks in collaboration using available technology to make things much easier and less costly for people. Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think legislation, just to close that item that also Jose touched upon, it's completely different. I think only Chile has like a truly kind of a modern fintech law, which actually started the end of last year or beginning of this year, which very much outlays of how everything should work, but everyone else is you know, just connecting things together. As Rafael said, you know, you can make the payment. Is it like this most simplified world in a, you know, app API that is exactly the same everywhere? Probably not. So I think there's a lot to do there to standardize and then reach scale because scale is critical to this. This is a broad question and from an infrastructure perspective, how important is flexibility when payment methods providers and regulators vary so wildly? Keep the good thing I'll I'll on a positive note. The good thing about the fintech world is that we all talk to each other. We become very good friends. We meet together at fairs, conference. We have WhatsApp groups, so we talk a lot. So we're not necessarily waiting for some central bank daddy to come up with a regulation. We just talk and find ways to make things work. And that is good, I believe, because we try different things, and the and the winning solution is the one that keeps winning the market rather than all just in developing some solution that some big product manager in the central bank, you know, generated for everybody to adopt. So I'm happy with not having a LATAM fintech law, let's say, and rather find ways to collaborate between market participants. Well, perfect. Let's talk about that collaboration then. Why does collaboration matter so much in the Latam market? Well, because of that, and I'm only gonna say one thing, we are taking advantage of the fact that Latin Americans are very sociable. We talk. We like to party. We like to go get some drinks, and, you know, we share the same language except with the except from the from the from the Brazilians, but we all get along very well, I guess, and that helps a lot. It's not Europe, you know, some people talking in Norwegian and some people talking in Spanish that can hardly understand each other. And just to add, of course, on all the which is true and correct and accurate on all this social environment in Latin America and this collaboration, I mean, we we are in the payments space and payments is complex. So you need to collaborate to find those pieces in the market from other partners that could complete your solution or improve your solution. That's why it's so important. Collaboration. Yep. Critical, you know, because we already said there's no single player can solve everything. It's just not possible. So you definitely need to partner. You know, by doing so, you just, you know, make things happen in weeks instead of months. And the more partnership you want, better you're suited for your customers to, you know, to have that integration with you and get everything sorted, you know. That's probably why we partnered with Spridly because, you know, know, any we normally touch upon very large retailers. You know, they want to do everything, but what they're not happy to do is to do like a new integration. So it's very important, you know, and orchestrators play a key, key role there to make sure that, you know, they can give them choices. And when they have choices, they can pick, you know, players like us that can cater for a number of their markets and simplify things for them. Absolutely. What is, if you were to write down the secret recipe to a great partnership, what is it? So from Miami FinTech Club, what we've seen is that, you know, when you build an ecosystem that in which people are just meeting meeting each other and exchanging ideas, it builds trust. So for me, number one is building a relationship in which you can trust your partner. It's pretty basic, I know, but sometimes we get lost in names and sometimes, you know, huge, huge names and organizations that may not, be a fit. And then the how complementary is the solution to your solution and to what you are looking for. Just yesterday, I was talking to an entrepreneur and he's an engineer and he's building things and he's like, but I'm the first one to go out and, you know, buy a product. I'm not gonna develop a product if it's out there. Right? So that's one of the main drivers behind partnerships. Why why would I build it if somebody already spent all this time and effort in building it? Let me just plug it in. And, you know, looking for solutions in the market that can accelerate your go to market strategy is the key and what determines whether that partnership will work or not. Is it going to accelerate your process? Yes or no? That's one of the keys for me. Fabulous. Does anyone else have any secret recipes to their great partnership? No, I think, you know, there's good alignment and trust that takes a lot of the hassle out of the way. And, you know, what I like to say sometimes to one of our customers is that they don't know sometimes who is involved. So like a very good partnership is one that the merchant doesn't see the complexity. They just see the results. So because they don't know if there's three or four other parties involved, they just see they can get things done and they can see performance. That is when you know it works perfectly well. I would add only one thing that is flexibility and real empathy of your partner towards your needs because there's always gonna be something new that needs to be done to serve your your clients, and you were you you want the partner you've selected to to go by your side. Like, I mean, for example, we've done so many things together. We've developed so many new integrations, tokenizations, authentications, and and crazy things in added so many local brand cards, for example, to the platform. And we it was totally paramount for us to continue in in service. Right? And the partner has, you know, done its part, and that that's key. Yeah. To highlight, Rafael's statement about empathy. At the end of the day, persons in this call, we represent a company. But these companies are made of persons. Right? So it's also such an important piece that kind of person to person relationship and that empathy that makes also the company we represent kind of palatable for a long term partnership. Yeah. It's the goal to fit too. Right? Because, you know, from what you're saying is both organizations position the client in the same way and view the servicing to the client in the same way. And that's key too. You wanna you wanna be with somebody to understand, hey. No. We have to be flexible with our clients. Some organizations are more stiff. They they're not gonna move like that. So you it sounds like you guys have been moving and developing new things in a flexible way. So you wanna make sure that when you're, you know, partnering with somebody, they have that same culture and that same view of how to service clients. So we are rapidly approaching the end of the webinar, so I'm gonna ask you all for one final piece of parting wisdom. So to each of you, if I start with Alejandra, if you could give one piece of advice to a payment leader that's entering the LatAm market right now, what would that be? Start as early as you can to market your product. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's the best way to test your product before you do a full launch. That's one of the things we always do. You know? Go out, talk about your product, market it, see the reaction, and then we'll go you know, we we call it little launches. Try your little launches, then your big launch is gonna be that much better. Brilliant. Jaime? Yeah. I was gonna say for, again, thinking of retailers that come into the region and we've seen a lot is since we said, right? So we build for regional scale, really execute locally. That's going to drive the difference for you to have better performance. It all looks like one region. That's not true. There's many, many Latams inside Latam. So keep that in mind because you'll have some lessons to learn. And again, keep infrastructure as clean as easy as possible because that's critical for scale. We need to take those things into consideration if you want to succeed. Thank you so much. Jose? I would say if I just have to choose one, do a deep market assessment. And when I say do a deep market assessment, I'm not just talking about the classical variables of your business like we have talked, you know, payment methods in the market, regulation. I mean, other external variables that could, of course, influence your success or not in that market. Like political. I mean, Chile just brought a new president from the right side. So stability is expected. Right. In a couple of months, Peru are electing a new president. So it's a turbulent time as of now. There is a big fight between the right hand, the left side of political parties. So not a good time. Maybe wait a little more if you want to jump into Peru. Right? So that's my advice. A very deep analysis of the market you want to enter, not only your classical variables of your business, but also external variables. Very wise. And finally, Rafael. On top of everything, because everything that has been said is true, know, find the right partners and be ready and be willing to to spend a bit more on on fees, on partner fees. But there are so much so many things that you can solve with the right partners. But not also not only payments, employees, logistics. You know, you can build the business almost without having without even to have a legal entity in the country where you're entering so that you can test the product, as Alejandro was saying, in the market. You analyze that it's a good place to enter, like Jose said. Right? And so so it's easy to test without having to build big. Brilliant. Thank you so much all of you. There are some proper nuggets of wisdom in there. I'm afraid that is all we have time for. A huge thank you to our speakers and, of course, our partners at Spreedy, and thank you to everyone watching at home. This session will be available on demand, so feel free to revisit and share it with your teams. You can catch it on the fintech website. So thanks again for joining, and we'll see you all next time. Thank you. Thank