#119: In the 2024 fintech movie: payments, Open Finance, and fundraising. And what to expect in 2025?
W FINTECHS NEWSLETTER #119
👀 Portuguese Version 👉 here
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Iniciador enables Regulated Institutions and Fintechs in Open Finance, with a white-label SaaS technology platform that reduces their technological and regulatory burden:
Real-time Financial Data
Payment Initiation
Issuer Authorization Server (Compliance Phase 3)
We are a Top 5 Payment Initiator (ITP) in Brazil in terms of transaction volume.
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This is the last edition of 2024. I'll be back on January 13, 2025. I want to start by thanking each one of you who read, shared, and followed the W Fintechs Newsletter throughout the year. Your support, participation, and engagement made all the difference.
This year, I published more deep dive editions, covering topics like digital identity, instant payments, and data-sharing ecosystems. It’s been truly enjoyable to explore these subjects in depth and have you with me throughout these months.
For 2025, I have some new plans for the newsletter that I’ll share at the end of this edition. But before that, I want to express my sincerest thanks to all of you, my readers. Thank you so much!
If 2024 were a movie about the sector, the main characters would be: instant payments, Open Finance, AI, and fundraising. The plot would revolve around regulatory advances, signals from investors, and, most importantly, market progress within what has already been regulated—and what’s still to come.
Digital transformation has moved from being a theory to a real-time battleground. Instant payments have advanced globally, establishing themselves as an ongoing transformation with many chapters still to be written.
Artificial intelligence, aligned with open ecosystems like Open Finance, has turned what was once a pile of regulations and promises into real use cases and tangible numbers. Big players and new fintechs are competing for every slice of the market, creating a new dynamic in the financial sector. The soundtrack of this movie was undoubtedly composed by interest rates, which have risen around the world, impacting investment rounds that, without a doubt, have been more cautious compared to previous years.
The Protagonists
Since 2022, headlines have been flooded with the term "artificial intelligence." The impact of AI, seemingly, has been much more related to internal efficiency gains and task automation than to new products for customers and end users. However, with the accelerated transformations in the financial market, AI is beginning to be seen as a key element for the next generation of financial products and services.
Some Brazilian fintechs, for example, are ahead in this movement, combining AI with Open Finance to create smarter and more personalized financial solutions. Pix and Drex, which are expected to further consolidate in 2025, are examples of how Brazil’s digital financial infrastructure is integrating emerging technologies in an innovative way. Globally, strategies like Nubank’s acquisition of Hyperplane, or Klarna’s replacement of much of its workforce with AI, show how major players are anticipating the future. But the challenge goes deeper: AI in the financial sector is complex, and its application needs to go beyond simple process automation.
In 2025, the financial sector will face a crucial turning point: how to use artificial intelligence to improve the customer experience without losing people's trust. With the capabilities of Open Finance and Automatic Pix in advanced stages, the promise of a seamless financial experience is closer than ever. However, the real question will be how fintechs and banks integrate these technologies in a transparent and secure manner, especially in a context where consumers will become increasingly aware of the risks associated with the use of personal and financial data. Tokenization with Drex, for example, could offer new paths for security and trust but also requires careful regulation to avoid stifling innovation. The big challenge will be ensuring that customers understand and feel secure with decisions made by algorithms, even when those decisions are complex and involve smart transfers or automatic payments.
Furthermore, personalization will be a key point, but it needs to be done in an inclusive, accessible, and useful way for everyone. Open Finance, combined with instant payment systems and the tokenization of the economy, opens a vast field for creating more personalized and fair solutions. However, the true test will be finding the balance between utilizing technology and maintaining customer trust.
Payment ecosystems are rapidly evolving around the world, and Brazil has been standing out in this movement. With Pix, the country has already become a global model for instant payments, and with the integration of Open Finance, this trend is only set to intensify. The creation of an interoperable payment infrastructure, combined with the growing adoption of technologies like AI and tokenization, promises to open new opportunities for innovation in the credit market, making it more efficient and targeted.
The impact is clear: the digitalization of Pix, alongside the advancement of solutions like Drex, not only accelerates financial digitization but also makes data more accessible for new, more inclusive, and accurate credit solutions. This transformation in Brazil is happening within the context of accelerated digitization across Latin America, where e-commerce is growing exponentially and platforms like WhatsApp are consolidating as key channels for human interaction. Artificial intelligence emerges as a powerful tool to create, automate, and optimize financial processes and decisions, further accelerating this transition.
Bureaucracy, which for a long time was seen as the main villain of innovation, has now become an unexpected ally. Regulation, through measures like the regulatory sandbox and the oversight of regional regulators, has been a driving force behind the profound transformations we are witnessing in Latin America, especially in the fintech sector.
Brazil, once considered an emerging market with significant challenges, has now become fertile ground for innovation. And unlike the past, when regulations stifled progress, today they are paving the way for fintechs to test new ideas. This has resulted in a significant rebound in investment fundraising, even in a global environment with higher interest rates.
For 2025 in Latin America
The financial transformation taking shape in 2025 in Latin America will be driven by a unique convergence of factors that are reshaping the market. Open Finance is no longer a distant promise; it is a rapidly growing reality that, alongside innovations like Automatic Pix and smart transfers, will redefine the ways consumers interact with financial institutions. Countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are already leading the implementation of these solutions, but by 2025, we will see this integration take on global dimensions. Drex, Brazil’s digital currency, is just one example of the transformative potential that asset tokenization and the use of stablecoins hold for the region. With the advancement of Open Finance, new credit dynamics will be created, promoting a more efficient and accessible market, especially for the unbanked population—one of the region’s biggest challenges.
The foreign exchange and cross-border operations market in Latin America will also undergo a revolution, not just through new traditional financial solutions, but also through the crypto-economy. Stablecoin-based solutions for international transactions will lower costs and reduce bureaucracy in money transfers, a reality that impacts millions of Latin Americans who depend on international remittances.
Fintechs in Latin America, from players like Mercado Livre in Argentina to Nubank in Brazil, are at the forefront of this change, building financial ecosystems that range from retail to more complex financial services.
Brazil and other countries in the region are positioning themselves to be not only consumers but also producers of innovative solutions, with the potential to export their models to other markets around the world. Latin America, long seen as a market of "untapped opportunities," is now positioning itself as a fertile ground for innovation and could contribute a new chapter to the global financial system.
W Fintechs in 2025
In 2025, I will focus more energy on a few key areas and initiatives for W Fintechs. I want to dedicate attention to three main fronts: the traditional newsletter, 3W in Fintech, and interactive reports/dashboards on regulatory advances, financial innovations in general, and Open Finance use cases in Latin America.
Monetization
I’ve been producing content for free since 2021. The newsletter has always been about learning and sharing. However, for 2025, I’m considering monetizing the content more. I’m not sure yet what the best model is, but I have two in mind.
Paid Subscriptions
Starting in 2025, I’ll adopt a strategy of placing some of the W Fintechs content behind a paywall. I’ve never done this before, but I believe this change will help create a more reliable source of revenue, while also providing subscribers with higher-quality and more in-depth content.
To do this, I’ll be exploring different approaches, such as offering group subscription packages focused on companies and organizations operating within the fintech ecosystem in Latin America. The idea is that, over time, this strategy will provide a solid base of recurring revenue and sustain the growth of the W Fintechs Newsletter.
Sponsorships
My approach to sponsorships will be diversified, with a focus on two main areas. The first is direct newsletter sponsorship, which has been an effective way to generate visibility for brands wanting to reach decision-makers in the fintech sector, such as Iniciador. In this model, brands can benefit from featured posts that appear at the top of the newsletters, creating a valuable opportunity for brand recognition.
The second area involves paid content partnerships, where fintech companies collaborate with us to create sponsored editions. These pieces are more educational and aim to inform the market about innovations or new products in the sector. One model I want to adopt is through the 3W in Fintech series (what, when, who), where I’ll tell the stories of fintechs I believe are promising, based on three pillars: innovation, differentiation, and strategies adopted.
If any of these models are of interest to you, feel free to reach out directly to discuss further details.
If you know anyone who would like to receive this e-mail or who is fascinated by the possibilities of financial innovation, I’d really appreciate you forwarding this email their way!
Until the next!
Walter Pereira
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely the responsibility of the author, Walter Pereira, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors, partners, or clients of W Fintechs.