BBVA launches OpenPay in Argentina to reap the benefits of fintech growth

Traditional banking continues to make its way into the fintech ecosystem, this time through the launch of a brand that already has weight in other markets in the region. BBVA will bring OpenPay to the country to compete in the payment processing segment (PSP) and has already begun to take the first formal steps to install it in this territory.

This fintech company was founded in Mexico, more precisely in Querétaro, in 2013 by Eric Núñez, Heber Lazcano Camargo and Roberto Bargagli. They were looking for a provider to solve e-commerce for their venture and, not finding any that suited their needs, they created their own.

“With a single integration, the business can receive payments with cards, in cash, via bank transfer and affinity points, among others. This reduces collaboration costs for the business and increases sales by 25 percent,” the founders detailed on their website. The startup was a finalist in the BBVA Open Talent contest in 2015 and at the end of the following year the Spanish bank signed the acquisition commitment – it closed the purchase in 2017.

For the time being, BBVA formally incorporated the company under the name OpenPay Argentina SA and its share capital is divided between Banco BBVA Argentina SA (12.51%) and BBVA America (87.49%). Last April it had already registered the trademark with the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). Juan Christian Kindt, Director of Business Development of the institution, is the President; and Santiago Benvenuto, Manager of Payment Methods, is the VP.

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What is the intention of BBVA

“Our intention is to create a robust platform with easy and fast integration so that any startup or company can implement traditional or mobile e-commerce and other more complex e-business models such as crowdfunding, Marketplace and wallets,” summarized Bargagli, CEO of OpenPay in his Linkedin profile. It also allows cash payments by depositing in convenience stores called Paynet.

In mid-2020, BBVA launched the fintech company in Colombia, where it expected to reach a market share of 5 percent. In Argentina, e-commerce grew 124 percent last year and moved more than $905 billion, according to a report by Kantar Insights for the Argentine Chamber of Electronic Commerce (CACE). For example, during the last Hot Sale, sales exceeded $ 25 billion, an increase of 29 percent compared to the 2020 edition.

While Argentina has an unemployment rate close to 12% and poverty higher than 42%, there are some dynamic sectors in job creation

The Argentine Chamber of Fintech prepared a study that shows that the technology-based finance sector already employs some 14,728 people and expects to generate 5,683 more jobs by the end of the year. The technology and digital product areas are the main generators of new jobs in the knowledge economy. According to the survey, eight out of ten positions in the fintech ecosystem will be created in these sectors. There, the most demanded roles are those of backend, fullstack, and frontend developers. More than half of the 302 companies that make up the ecosystem are actively searching for these profiles .

In the product area, the most required are product manager, product owner, product analyst and UX / UI designer. According to the Chamber report, digital payment companies are the ones that provide the most jobs, reaching 27% of the total fintech ecosystem , followed by credits (22%), technology providers, B2B fintech services, blockchain & crypto, investments, financing, insurtech and computer security. 

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(Featured image by matcuz via Pixabay)

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First published in El Cronista, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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