Nasdaq Extends Partnership With Nubank to Grow Latam Banking Presence

Nasdaq wants to expand its digital bank FinTech presence in Latin America.

The tech company agreed to provide its AxiomSL regulatory reporting tool to Nubank, the region’s digital banking giant, according to a Monday (Sept. 23) press release.

“The agreement extends Nasdaq’s existing partnership with Nubank, which includes providing the technology that underpins the bank’s treasury function — managing its fixed income and money market operations — and now the bank’s regulatory reporting obligations in Colombia,” the release said.

The arrangement also reflects rising demand in Latin America for third-party FinTech solutions as digital banking grows more popular, according to the release.

With this shift, the region’s regulatory frameworks are changing to bolster the system’s integrity, helping unlock new areas of digital banking and open finance, per the release.

“Nevertheless, the regulatory environment remains deeply complex for companies seeking to access multiple jurisdictions and regulatory regimes,” the release said.

For instance, requirements in Brazil typically focus on the types of products and services provided while Mexico has a special license for FinTechs, according to the release. Colombia has several small, digital banks that function as financing companies, which are regulated differently than banks and financial corporations.

“This pattern is replicated across Latin America where the confluence of innovation, rapid growth and regulatory complexity is driving traditional and digital banks to seek third-party technology providers to meet their regulatory needs,” the release said.

Digital banking’s dominance of the Latin American financial landscape was reflected in the PYMNTS Intelligence report “How The World Does Digital,” which showed Brazil had the highest digital engagement out of the 11 countries surveyed.

The research found that 63.2% of respondents engaged in mobile banking at least weekly, with online banking at 59.4%. The rest of the world checked in at 46.8% and 42.4%, respectively.

PYMNTS explored this phenomenon in an interview with Osvaldo Giménez, president of FinTech at MercadoLibre and CEO of Mercado Pago, Mercado Libre’s financial services unit.

“I think that what has happened in Brazil has been amazing,” he said in August. “The central bank has taken an approach that says, ‘I’m OK with innovation, and I want to increase competition.’ In some countries, you see that there’s a strong lobby from traditional banks to prevent competition. In Brazil, everyone wants a level playing field. They want innovation to happen.”