FINTECH

One of the largest reasons for fintech growth in the region is the desire to improve access to financial services. As many countries in LatAm remain cash first economies, their governments are trying to push digitisation to further develop them. The result of this is testing and trying new tech, almost acting as a guinea pig, to see what works and what doesn’t. 

Bank Connect will be integrated with ClearBank’s API-first platform, allowing fintechs that have a card programme or digital wallets on Tribe’s platform to add banking services to their payment products.

Consider this. Over the last decade after the global financial crisis, generally referred to as GFC, the world has seen trillions of dollars being pushed into economies by major central banks. Initially, this was done to stave off an economic collapse after the fall of Lehman Brothers in mid-September 2008. The immediate aftermath of the storied investment bank that had tentacles into many markets around the world caused a lot of global markets to freeze, causing a serious risk of massive corporate failures, job losses and social unrest.

The world’s major retail banks still dominate the financial services landscape, providing the deposit, payment, and credit facilities that we all use and take for granted, but they are no longer the only players in town. Today’s online shopper might pay with a debit card but equally they might choose PayPal. The business that would once have relied on its bank for credit can now borrow from peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms or specialist lenders. And digital banks are vying with their bricks-and-mortar counterparts for customer deposits. It’s all about access and convenience.