The fintech Ualá obtained authorization from the National Banking and Securities Commission of Mexico (CNBV) and the Bank of Mexico to buy the bank ABC Capital, an entity with which the Argentine company had already been working.
Now, the Mexican bank, founded 12 years ago, will become part of Ualá, which will allow Pierpaolo Barbieri's firm to have a local leg to continue growing in that market.
It is the second acquisition made by Ualá, which last year achieved approval for the purchase of 100% of Wilobank's shares in Argentina.
During the last months, Ualá and ABC Capital had a co-branding agreement (Ualá ABC) in Mexico, with the premise of the digitalization of finance. Under this modality, the bank had launched several products, such as credit card, remittances and personal loans.
"The acquisition of ABC Capital will allow Ualá to accelerate product launches in Mexico, our largest growth market," Barbieri said in a statement. The firm also operates in Colombia since January 2022.
"This is a huge step for the regional development of Ualá, since it confirms that with regulated entities we can offer a unique and differential proposal," said the CEO of Ualá.
In the coming days, the process of change of control will be formalized, initiating a period of integration between both companies.
Recently, Ualá announced an investment in the region of 150 million dollars for the next 18 months, to reach more than 25 million users in the next five years. It currently has more than 4 million cards issued in Argentina.
The company has among its investors funds such as SoftBank Latin America Fund and Tencent, and reached a valuation of 2,450 million dollars.
His latest release in Argentina
This week, Ualá presented an intelligent collection terminal (POS) with which it hopes to compete with Mercado Pago and the main players in the acquisition business, for payments in medium and large stores.
It promised that it will have "automatic crediting" of payments and the lowest commissions in the market, to carve out a place in a growing segment, in light of the greater digitization of payments.
Since the end of 2021, the fintech created its Ualá Bis business unit, with a focus on payments, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Now, with the POS Pro it launched on Tuesday, it is targeting larger businesses: small and medium-sized businesses that need to digitally collect their face-to-face sales.
NE
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