Belvo - Open Finance API Platform for Latin America
High-Level Overview
Belvo is the leading Open Finance API platform in Latin America, enabling fintechs, financial institutions, and developers to access, aggregate, and interpret end-user financial data through a single, secure API. It serves over 150 enterprise clients across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, including major fintech players like Rappi and Mercado Libre. Belvo’s platform aggregates data from more than 60 financial institutions, covering over 90% of personal and business bank accounts in these markets, and extends beyond banking to include tax authorities and other financial data sources. This enables better underwriting, KYC, credit scoring, and payment initiation, fostering more inclusive and efficient financial services in the region[1][2][3].
For an investment firm, Belvo’s mission is to power the next generation of financial services in Latin America by enabling more inclusive, efficient, and empowering offerings through technology and data. Their investment philosophy centers on supporting infrastructure that unlocks financial inclusion and innovation in emerging markets. The key sectors include fintech, open banking, payments, and credit. Belvo has a significant impact on the startup ecosystem by providing foundational financial infrastructure that accelerates fintech innovation and expands access to financial services across Latin America[1][6].
For a portfolio company, Belvo builds an Open Finance API platform that aggregates and enriches financial data and enables payment initiation. It primarily serves fintechs, neobanks, lenders, and financial institutions seeking to build modern, data-driven financial products tailored to Latin America’s unique market needs. Belvo solves the problem of fragmented financial data access and lack of standardized APIs in Latam, enabling companies to securely collect and interpret financial data to improve credit models, identity verification, and payment services. The company has demonstrated strong growth momentum, with over 2 million users sharing data and continuous expansion of institutional coverage and client base since its founding in 2019[1][3][5].
Origin Story
Belvo was founded in May 2019 by Pablo Viguera and Oriol Tintoré, who brought experience in fintech and technology. The idea emerged from recognizing the lack of unified financial data infrastructure in Latin America, where traditional banking penetration is low and financial data is fragmented across multiple institutions and formats. Early traction came from building integrations with major banks and financial institutions in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, quickly becoming the largest Open Finance platform in the region by coverage and client adoption. The company has since expanded its focus from open banking to a broader Open Finance approach, incorporating multiple data sources like tax authorities and gig economy platforms to provide a more complete financial picture[1][4][5].
Core Differentiators
- Widest Coverage: Belvo connects to over 140 financial institutions, covering more than 90% of bank accounts in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, including both personal and business accounts[4][7].
- Multiple Data Sources: Beyond banking, Belvo integrates tax data, investment platforms, and point-of-sale data to provide a comprehensive financial profile, crucial in a region with significant unbanked populations[1][4].
- Enterprise-Grade Security: Belvo was the first Open Finance API platform in Latin America to obtain ISO 27001 certification, ensuring high standards of data security and regulatory compliance[2][7].
- Developer Experience: The platform offers extensive documentation, customizable front-end widgets for user login, sandbox environments for testing, and rapid integration capabilities to reduce time-to-market for clients[4][3].
- Data Enrichment: Proprietary machine learning models refine raw financial data into actionable insights, enhancing credit scoring, underwriting, and customer engagement[1].
- Payment Initiation: Enables account-to-account payments directly through client apps, expanding beyond data aggregation to transactional capabilities[1].
Role in the Broader Tech Landscape
Belvo rides the global Open Finance and open banking trend, which is gaining momentum in Latin America due to increasing digital adoption, fintech innovation, and regulatory pushes for financial transparency and inclusion. The timing is critical as Latam’s large underbanked population and fragmented financial systems create a strong demand for unified, secure financial data access. Market forces such as rising smartphone penetration, government support for open finance frameworks, and growing fintech ecosystems in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia favor Belvo’s growth. By providing foundational infrastructure, Belvo influences the broader ecosystem by enabling startups and incumbents to build more inclusive, data-driven financial products, accelerating financial inclusion and innovation across the region[1][3][6].
Quick Take & Future Outlook
Belvo is well-positioned to continue expanding its coverage and product capabilities, potentially entering new Latin American markets and deepening integrations with non-traditional financial data sources. Trends shaping its journey include increasing regulatory support for Open Finance, growing fintech adoption, and demand for embedded finance solutions. Belvo’s influence is likely to evolve from a data aggregator to a broader financial infrastructure provider, including payments and enriched analytics, solidifying its role as a critical enabler of Latin America’s digital financial ecosystem. For investors and partners, Belvo represents a strategic gateway to the rapidly growing and underserved Latam fintech market[1][6][7].
