Finovate Global Brazil: Debt Management, BNPL, and Building a Bigger Bitcoin Reserve

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features the latest fintech news and headlines from Brazil.

Nubank unveils Recomeço to help borrowers renegotiate debt

Brazilian fintech Nubank unveiled its latest and largest campaign to help customers with outstanding payments renegotiate their debts. The program, Recomeço, enables eligible customers to receive discounts of up to 99.9% for a limited time. These customers will be notified via the Nubank app, where they will be provided personalized details about their renegotiation options and next steps.

“At Nubank, our customers and their financial well-being are our priority,” CEO of Nubank in Brazil, Livia Chanes, said. “This was the main reason for creating Nubank: to combat complexity and empower people. We are committed to providing personalized solutions with the best possible conditions, contributing to long-term financial health. We want to support our customers, who have trusted Nubank, to start over.”

Eligible customers will need to have a “generally good credit history” and engagement with Nubank. The fintech hopes that the program will benefit those customers who do not tend to have recurring debts, but may have recently experienced financial difficulties. Recomeço also features resources and tools to support credit recovery and smart financial decision-making. These resources include a blog with tips on financial wellness and education.

Nubank’s Recomeço news comes less than a week after the fintech unveiled NuScore, a credit rating tool for its customers. NuScore provides customers with a score from 0 to 1,000, a classification—very high, high, average, low, and very low—and access to the behavioral and historical factors that guided the scoring. These factors include credit card usage, savings patterns in Nubank’s personalized digital savings accounts called Caixas, the amount of debt in the market, and the customer’s score analysis from credit bureaus. Customers will also benefit from recommendations on how they can improve their credit profile and overall financial health.

“Our goal is to establish a solid partnership with our customers to build a robust credit profile, promoting satisfaction, increasing eligibility and engagement with credit products that meet their needs in a responsible manner,” said Arthur Valadão, general director for Nubank’s Roxinho (credit card) segment.

Founded in 2013, Nubank is headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil. The company is an alum of Finovate’s developer conference, FinDEVr, having participated in the event in New York in 2016. Today, Nubank offers one of the region’s and the world’s biggest digital banking platforms, with more than 100 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

Brazilian BNPL provider raises $26.7 million in series A funding

Capim, a startup that offers a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payment option for Brazilians paying for dental services, has secured $25.7 million in Series A funding. The round, which consisted of two parts, featured Valor Capital and QED Investors as co-leads. Existing investors ONEVC, Canary, and NXTP also participated, along with new investors Endeavor, Saison, and Actyus. The Series A takes Capim’s total capital raised to $29 million. Valuation information was not disclosed.

A vertical SaaS company specializing in the dental sector, Capim helps dentists leverage digital technology to better manage their offices. In addition to providing payment options like BNPL, Capim helps dental patients schedule their appointments digitally at connected clinics. The funding will help Capim expand its offerings to include a point-of-sale (POS) terminal that will offer dentists lower merchant discount rates. Terminals will accept credit and debit cards, and payments from Brazil’s real-time payment system, PIX. The terminals will be fully integrated with Capim’s SaaS financial management module.

“At Capim, we know that being a dentist is much more than taking care of smiles—it is transforming lives every day,” the company noted on LinkedIn when the investment was announced. “With our verticalized software, we develop, with our customers, incredible products, ensuring resources and all the support that really make a difference.”

Founded in 2021, Capim is headquartered in São Paulo.

Méliuz proposes expanding bitcoin reserves

Brazilian fintech Méliuz is considering an expansion of its Bitcoin holdings and making the digital asset a strategic asset on the company’s ledger. The company initiated its bitcoin strategy earlier this year, devoting 10% of the company’s cash to purchase 45.7 Bitcoin worth $4.1 million. According to the Brazil Crypto Report, this marks the first time a Brazilian, publicly listed company used cash funds from its treasury to buy Bitcoin for investment purposes.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Belo Horizonte, Méliuz provides digital solutions via a platform that integrates marketplaces and financial services. With more than 800 partner stores, Méliuz promotes discounts, services, and coupons through its website, app, and browser extension. The company also builds special cashback programs for its marketplace and financial services partners.

The final decision on expanding Méliuz’s Bitcoin holdings will be based on a shareholder meeting and vote on May 6, the company noted in a securities filing.

Earlier this year, Méliuz reaffirmed its strategic alliance with Banco Votorantim (banco BV), initially forged in 2022. Also that year, Méliuz announced a partnership with Liqi, a blockchain-based asset tokenization startup.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Emirates NBD teamed up with Visa to enhance international money transfers.
Egyptian fintechs Basata Holding for Financial Payments and Connect Money launched a new card to boost payment security.
CTech interviewed Israeli fintech entrepreneur-turned-investor Alon Huri.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Brazilian fintech Nubank launched its credit rating tool, NuScore, for Nu customers.
Latin American Open Finance platform Belvo raised $15 million in funding.
Chilean acquiring network Klap went live with Visa and Mastercard acquiring services in partnership with BPC.

Asia-Pacific

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) launched phase two of their cross-border QR payment scheme.
Australia-based lender Bizcap brought its same-day funding solution to Singapore.
The Bank of Thailand (BOT) approved three new digital banks led by Krungthai Bank, SCBX, and Ascend Money.