Check out #MirandaIntelligence's FinTech Chatter. Highlights:
Plata – The Elon Musk of Mexican FinTech?
Plata's license process took 677 days, longer than Revolut’s 657 days and slower than Openbank México’s 476 and bineo’s 467 days. It will probably take another year before Plata is ready to launch its bank in Mexico, when it will be able to offer deposit accounts and grow its personal loan and investment portfolio services.
Still, the license approval is a triumph for Plata. Plata does not have the backing of a big global parent and had to deal with misunderstandings about its Russian roots, (the company is run by former Tinkoff top executives). Plata was founded by Baring Ventures, one of Tinkoff ’s original private equity backers and also investors in Kaspi.kz, Revolut, and other top FinTechs. (Oleg Tinkov, the Tinkoff founder who has no direct role in Plata, left Russia for good in 2022 following his outspoken criticisms of the invasion of Ukraine).
Meanwhile, Plata’s credit card business appears to be doing well, and new functionalities (investing in US stocks and personal loans) have been added to the app. The company likely has around one million cards issued and raised at least US $250 million in debt this year, most recently raising an unsecured facility of US $55 million. Industry sources suggest its NPLs and cost of risk are lower than other credit card FinTechs.
App downloads and web traffic consistently place Plata in the top five new digital financial platforms. Plata has a much lower first-fraud rate than its competitors, in part because you cannot get a Plata credit card without a visit from one of its ambassadors—although this likely comes with higher operational costs.
So how has the relatively unknown Plata seemingly matched or in some cases outfoxed better financed fintechs (so far)?
Tinkoff expertise in Russia. Tinkoff was the earliest and most successful FinTech in the world. Indeed, David Vélez from Nu has said in public that he took inspiration from Tinkoff.
Engineering and data science approach. Plata has about 1,500 employees. Of the 500 in corporate, 350 are based outside Mexico (mostly engineers and data scientists, many with previous Tinkoff experience), and another 150 are based in Mexico. The company has another 1,000 local employees in operations in Mexico.
Focus on Mexico alone. There are no competing management and tech demands.
Hardcore, Elon Musk culture. Unlike some traditional banks or FinTechs it’s a full-on, work-from-office, 24×7 customer-centric culture.
Why bother to be a bank when FinTech Sofipos and banks are paying above CETES for deposits? Plata’s bet is that wholesale funding costs will come down from the low 20s% to near TIIE from being a regulated bank, its deposit product kicks in, and profitability becomes more apparent. In other words, while it’s costly to be a bank, it’s more costly not to be.
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