The Innovators 2026: Latin America

As the world explores the possibilities of artificial intelligence, financial institutions and fintechs in Latin America have been using this and other technologies to disrupt how money circulates and how customers are served.

One result of technology’s impact on how financial services are delivered to the broader Latin American market is an increase in account ownership among adults to over 75% in 2025, up from 39% in 2011, according to Global Findex Data. Technology has changed what customers experience and how they access their money, but it has also, at a basic level, changed how financial institutions operate.

Banks, financial institutions, and fintechs have been investing in digital solutions that put customers first and enable access to digital payment platforms and credit. Expanded consumer choice and the availability of financial products and services for consumers throughout the region have steadily bolstered local economies.

Across the region, about 89% of consumers currently qualify as digital users, according to MasterCard. Centralized frameworks throughout Latin America leverage a top-down approach and, in Mexico, for example, encourage the responsible adoption of new technologies in the financial system.

This year, financial institutions and fintechs have continued to explore the application of a range of new and existing technologies across a variety of use cases, including credit approvals, cross-border payments, and organizational processes.

The region is also becoming a hub for fintechs, with Brazil, Mexico, and Chile emerging as global leaders. Instant payments and Open Finance initiatives are accelerating this expansion. In Brazil, consent-based data sharing is driving new, highly personalized consumer offerings and experiences while expanding competition.

Technology and innovation have helped the region evolve into a more inclusive and resilient financial system.

Banco Bradesco

“Innovation in Latin America is reshaping the banking sector,” says Renata Petrovic, head of inovabra, Bradesco’s innovation ecosystem, “by shifting the focus from simply digitizing channels to redefining the relationship and operating model itself, embedding services more deeply into daily life, enabling smarter decisions, and delivering increasingly personalized experiences.”

Areas where Bradesco is seeing disruption include real-time payments; open finance, which is driving competition and smarter credit; AI, which is improving efficiency; data protection and fraud prevention; and the rise of digital assets. The bank has adopted a more proactive model to support clients throughout their financial journey while continuing to pursue transformation and modernization. In 2024 alone, Bradesco processed 99% of its transactions through digital channels, with 96% via mobile and internet banking.

“Our action plan is focused on evolving the digital bank and service models,” says Petrovic. “Our emphasis is on conversational banking, multimodal AI, omnichannel branches, and a consistent hybrid experience between physical and digital channels, as well as deploying AI agents across customer service, back office, security, and software development layers.”

i2c

Latin America’s fintechs have been integral to a regional drive to expand financial inclusion, shifting relationships from in-person to digital and from cash to cards and wallets. Digital payments are one way financial institutions in the region have established relationships with customers who were previously unreachable through traditional branch-based models.
“Once that relationship exists, even if it starts with something as simple as a prepaid card or a digital wallet, you have a foundation to build on,” says Amir Wain, founder and CEO of i2c.

As reliance on technology grows, so do the risks. California-based global financial technology innovator i2c uses AI as part of its transaction-fraud risk-management solution, which protects consumers by analyzing real-time transaction data, customer behavior, merchant-risk ratings, and acquirer profiles for every transaction.

On i2c’s platform, a client can launch a card program, test variations, and adjust features or pricing. “That fundamentally changes the economics of innovation,” Wain says. “Companies can experiment at a cost that makes experimentation worth doing and scale what works without rebuilding the foundation underneath it.”

Banamex | Digital Account Switch Banamex

Digital Account Switch Banamex integrates traditional banking with a mobile experience, combining digital and traditional brick-and-mortar channels. Customers can manage their finances without in-person visits while leveraging digital-banking trends. The platform offers personalized financial solutions tailored to each customer’s goals, financial needs, and loyalty—for example, enabling them to upgrade their account, purchase insurance policies and products, leverage investment products, and access other bank promotions. Customers can remotely open accounts via mobile device while accessing real-time tips and guidance that strengthen the onboarding process and highlight the account’s most relevant features.

Banco Bradesco | Cross-Border Payments via Blockchain with Stablecoin USDC

This innovation combines USD Coin (USDC)—a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin that operates on blockchain—and SWIFT messaging, enabling settlement within minutes on cross-border payments. With fewer steps and intermediaries, and no need to manage deadlines, time zones, or multiple correspondent banks, the solution is simpler and quicker than traditional international payment systems, with lower latency, lower expenses, and greater transparency.

Banco Bradesco | Open Finance as a Strategic Driver of Credit: Fair, Data-Driven, and Scalable Personal Loans

Using its internal credit engines to analyze open finance data, Bradesco now assesses clients based on their real-time behavior, to enable hyper-personalized risk reviews and approvals. The innovation leverages a customer’s complete financial data, eliminating information asymmetry. Previously, the bank based its customer-credit evaluations solely on internal history, resulting in fewer approvals and making Bradesco less competitive with digital players. In one year, the change resulted in a 236% increase in consents.

Banco Bradesco | Woodweb

This application leverages AI, a communication platform, and conversational swarm intelligence, which mimics swarm behavior, to enable brainstorming and decision-making as the bank grows and more individuals provide input. Woodweb is intended to help the bank make relevant corporate decisions by following established principles of governance, dialogue, and collaboration. The result is a more rational and consistent process for corporate decisions while maintaining the necessary rigor.

Banco Bradesco | CuradorIA – A Curation Agent for Automatic Analysis of BIA (Bradesco AI) Conversations

CuradorIA curates and analyzes conversations across all BIA service channels. Gen AI helps automate this process with a scalable, auditable solution, benefiting internal clients who rely on a consolidated view of problems and service teams. Technical partners enjoy greater security, scalability, and cost optimization.

Banco Bradesco | IDbra – Identidade Identidade Digital do Bradesco (Bradesco Digital Identity)

IDbra modernizes the digital registration process with decentralized credentialing that gives customers more control while reducing registration time from 17 to 4 minutes, with increased security, and reliability of shared data, and decreased friction. IDbra leverages blockchain, biometrics, secure computing devices, and application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable integration across multiple ecosystems and strengthen digital trust.

Banco Bradesco | AML (Adversarial Machine Learning) Project: Cybersecurity of Gen AI-Based Conversational Assistants – AML (Adversarial Maching Learning) Project

A vulnerability of generative AI models is that they are not always able to distinguish legitimate system instructions from malicious data, creating critical loopholes for attacks. To combat this issue, Bradesco and the University of São Paulo established a research partnership last year to better understand cybersecurity, AI, and linguistics. Results thus far include a tool for conducting security checks on the bank’s Gen AI applications and a prototype AI firewall.

Banco Bradesco | Mobile, AI-Enabled Relationship Assistant

This innovative assistant integrates with Salesforce CRM to generate client briefings that are accessible on mobile devices. On-the-go contact and activity are captured directly from the device, producing a transcript and summary for smarter preparation in determining next steps. By providing intelligence in the mobile workflow, the tool gives professionals more time for high-value interactions.

Banco de Crédito Del Perú | Emergency Block

Peru has relatively high street crime, much of it unreported. Now, after a robbery, customers can take immediate action to protect their accounts with Emergency Block. Banco de Crédito del Perú has turned the nation’s network of markets and businesses into an immediate emergency-response hub where customers can cancel their credit and debit cards in a single step. In the first three months following its launch last November, cards taken in about 8% of all robberies were blocked, directly benefiting over 4,200 customers. The bank hopes the service will discourage theft, making stolen cards essentially useless.

Banco De Occidente | International Transfer Tool (Multi-Rail Cross-Border System)

Sending money abroad is typically a complicated process that often takes 40 minutes and must be repeated, prompting bank customers to seek other services. With Banco de Occidente’s multi-rail international transfer tool, customers can easily send funds overseas via their mobile device or a web portal. The tool dynamically selects the best delivery method for funds based on criteria such as payment amount, destination, and timing, with the goal of keeping customer costs low, maintaining bank profits, and transferring funds quickly. The solution is integrated with SWIFT, and the bank plans to incorporate VISA Direct and other similar systems in the future.

Banco do Brasil | Hybrid Expert-Guided MAB Pricing for FX NDF Spreads

Manually pricing the BRL-USD nondeliverable forward (NDF) can lead to lost deals due to human error and inconsistent pricing spreads. Banco do Brasil’s solution uses an AI-driven pricing engine for foreign exchange (FX) spreads, employing a “multiarmed bandit” (MAB) approach that leverages machine learning to select among multiple options to maximize results. The bank benefits from more-consistent pricing, fewer lost deals, and increased revenue, while maintaining effective governance. The technology increased the accuracy of the bank’s pricing and productivity in just a few months, since operators are no longer needed for NDF quoting.

Banco do Brasil |Propensity for Successful Portfolio Assignment

Banco do Brasil uses an AI-driven, multisignal portfolio assignment model to more accurately identify and prioritize clients with high relationship potential. Rather than rely on rules based on individual income and SME turnover, the AI model identifies clients with greater potential for growth and profit and directs them to either a digital or a physical channel based on their behavior, profile, and geolocation. The model removes subjectivity, improves fairness, and better aligns portfolio allocation with corporate strategies, the bank found, resulting in higher margin growth. Customers, meanwhile, enjoy an enhanced experience because the bank is better able to meet their specific needs.

BancoEstado | Casaverso

BancoEstado is reinventing Chile’s construction and housing ecosystem by creating an integrated digital platform focused on efficiency, innovation, and sustainability. Casaverso centralizes data to improve decision-making and generate more affordable housing solutions through digital governance, advanced data analytics, and multisector collaboration. The Internet of Things measures pollution and construction quality, while blockchain leverages tokenization and secures property contracts.

Advanced analytics enable BancoEstado to better understand its customers and make more-informed decisions while Gen AI optimizes the home-buying process. The result is a better experience for home buyers, thanks to a simplified process, greater transparency, and access to financial products.

Banco Popular Dominicano | Digital Debit Cards

Digitalization, digital wallets, and banking subagents have helped a wider population in the Dominican Republic access financial services. This 100% digital debit card allows users to make purchases, receive cash advances, and make payments, through seamless integration with their digital wallets, eliminating the need for physical cards. Easy access and activation reduce costs for customers, increase efficiency, and improve access to financial education and banking services. The digital card enables customers to manage their accounts without visiting a branch, while a QR code facilitates activation for those who still want a physical card.

BBVA | SofIA: Enterprise Agent Copilot

This chatbot is integral to BBVA’s relationship model, which is based on understanding customers and specialized products. SofIA, an enterprise banking copilot, is embedded in Salesforce to enable clients to access bank products and performance data through conversational interfaces, including profitability, debt levels, and processed payments. Client executives receive insights intended to help them have more-informed conversations with their current clients and identify opportunities.

BBVA | Blue: First Gen AI Banking Assistant

Launched simultaneously in Spain and Mexico, Blue is a Gen AI banking assistant that replaces menu navigation and chatbots with a conversational layer to guide customers through processes that often begin with a question. The platform operates reliably at scale and simplifies routine banking for millions of customers by reducing time to resolution and delivering a more personal experience while maintaining privacy and regulatory standards.

BBVA | MARISA: Chatbot Assistant for Sustainable Activity Classification

To automate the complex regulatory verification process for sustainable finance operations, BBVA introduced MARISA, a Gen AI chatbot, last year. MARISA acts as an intelligent agent, executing a decision workflow to classify and evaluate deals by cross-referencing operations against internal standards and external regulations. The result is shorter analysis time and greater accuracy.

BBVA Argentina | BBVA Agro Advisor

Rather than relying on manual surveys and subjective evaluations, BBVA’s Agro Advisor uses AI, satellite data, and financial analysis, to assess crop yields and the financial potential of farmland in minutes. The platform integrates data to analyze historical land use, estimate current economic value, identify crop types and hydrological risks, and generate an automated summary. Benefits include lower surveying costs and shorter evaluation lead times.

BBVA Colombia | Padrino Contable IA

This innovation transforms back-office support by replacing manual processes that can hinder scaling with an AI-driven operational assistant. Padrino Contable IA is always available, more cost-efficient than previous back-office systems, and can deliver accounting guidance at scale. It provides more-timely, standardized, and technically rigorous responses by leveraging complex back-office expertise and automation technologies.

BBVA Mexico | Optimization of the Investment Portfolio for Wealth Management and Private Banking

Quantitative models that optimize investment portfolios in wealth management and private banking help advisers anticipate which asset classes clients are likely to invest in, enabling more-informed sales efforts. BBVA’s tool uses AI to analyze prospective client behavior, risk profiles, transaction patterns, and current portfolio concentrations to align clients’ needs and objectives with their investment strategies and to suggest how they can maximize economic benefits.

Niu App | Niu Secured Credit Card – with 100% Digital Issuance

Structural constraints, including high levels of informal employment, income sources such as remittances that are difficult to verify, and a lack of financial education, make it challenging to access traditional credit in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America. The Niu secured credit card lets eligible users access credit through a fully digital origination experience that eliminates paperwork, branch visits, and waiting periods. Users receive a guaranteed offer and a virtual card almost instantly by securing a cash deposit that earns up to 3.5% annually, helping them build credit history while their savings grow.