By Kylie Madry
MEXICO CITY, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Running fresh off a $300 million funding round announced earlier this week, Argentine financial technology firm Uala is looking to make profit inroads into Mexico and Colombia, its top executive said in an interview.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
Financial technology firms, or so-called fintechs, have been vying for unbanked or underbanked consumers in Latin America.
KEY QUOTES
"We believe that with this new round we're going to reach the size we need to be in Mexico, in Colombia, to be self-sustaining," CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri told Reuters. "We're on track."
In Mexico Uala has "quintupled deposits over the last 18 months," Barbieri said, crediting the growth to its savings accounts' 14% yield rate.
"We're going to invest a lot in Mexico and Colombia," Barbieri said. "We want Mexico and Colombia to be at the same scale or even greater than what we have in Argentina now."
CONTEXT
Barbieri attributed Uala's success to its product offerings, such as the high-yield savings accounts, guaranteed credit cards and commission-free remittances, plus its strategy to buy up banks to obtain their banking license to operate in each country.
Other fintech heavyweights such as Brazil's Nubank and Argentine e-commerce giant MercadoLibre's Mercado Pago arm have opted to apply for the licenses outright in Mexico.
BY THE NUMBERS
Uala was founded in 2017 in Argentina, where it has racked up more than 6 million clients and is turning a profit, Barbieri said.
It launched in Mexico just a few years later, and has grown to more than 1.7 million customers since, he added.
WHAT'S NEXT
The executive said that Mexico could become Uala's largest market by 2027, boosted by tailwinds such as the size of its economy and a young workforce.
(Reporting by Kylie MadryEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
((Kylie.Madry@thomsonreuters.com;))
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