Mexican Small Business Lender Buys a Bank, Eyes United States

Change is happening south of the border. Online lenders and alternative funders are growing across Mexico much the same way as elsewhere. This week, Credijusto, an online small business lender based in Mexico City, acquired Banco Finterra, marking the first time that a fintech has acquired a bank in the country.

According to Reuters, “Credijusto aims to ramp up services for Mexican companies that sell to the United States, and build a business for U.S. companies that do cross-border trade in Mexico and beyond in Latin America.”

Mexico also has more than 6 million small businesses, a market that is effecively 4-6x larger than Canada’s.

Prior to this, Credijusto had already collectively raised $400M from Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Point72 Ventures, New Residential Investment Corp., Kaszek, QED Investors, John Mack, Ignia, Promecap and LIV Capital.

“The acquisition of Banco Finterra seeks to create the first truly digital banking platform for Mexican companies in the future,” commented Allan Apoj, co-CEO of Credijusto. “This transaction marks an important milestone in Mexico and the region, and we are proud to be revolutionizing the future of banking in Latin America.”

Apoj’s partner, co-CEO David Poritz, hinted to Reuters that in a couple of years it may consider the acquisition of an American bank as well.

Earlier this year, Mexico began to allow fintech companies to obtain a Financial Technology Institution license.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.