Fortú emerges from stealth mode; announces strategic partnerships

By Pavithra R

Miami-based neobank Fortú announced the launch of its digital bank account focused on Latino and Hispanic U.S. residents who remain underserved by traditional financial institutions.

The FinTech focuses on building culturally contextual financial services to meet the unique banking needs of Latinos and Hispanics in the U.S. It is built on the extensible payment processing platform provided by Galileo, the API standard for card issuing and digital banking.

Fortú was founded by Charles Yim, a former Amazon Web Services and Google executive, and Apolo Doca, who previously helped build Lemon Bank, an early Brazilian digital bank acquired by Banco do Brasil. The firm has raised $5 mn till now.

According to Yim, the U.S. banking system is not well suited to serve Latinos, presenting obstacles ranging from big issues, such as regulations restricting how and when banks provide non-English language services, to smaller, high-impact issues, including greater embossing flexibility to avoid randomly truncating Latino names that don’t fit within the 24-character embossing standard.

“By creating products to answer the needs of Latinos, who are more likely than the general population to be under- and unbanked, Fortú has set itself apart from other neobanks, while transforming financial wellness for the Latino community. Building on the flexible Galileo payments processing infrastructure makes it all possible,” said Galileo CEO Clay Wilkes.

In a separate announcement, the company has also announced partnering with Cardtronics, to offer surcharge-free cash access for its members through the Allpoint Network of ATMs.

“Cash is an important part of Latino and Hispanic financial lives in the U.S., and we’re proud to partner with Cardtronics in bringing its large network of conveniently located and surcharge-free Allpoint ATMs to our users,” said Charles Yim, Fortú CEO.