Argentine FinTech Ualá partners with Galileo and expands to Mexico

By Pavithra R

Galileo Financial Technologies, a financial services API and payments platform provider that powers many of the world’s leading FinTechs has announced partnering with Ualá, the FinTech that leads the revolution of personal finances in Latin America.

Under the collaboration, Galileo is powering Ualá’s cross-border initiative and the company’s expansion into Mexico. Ualá’s expansion into Mexico was made possible through its partnership with Galileo. Galileo is directly connected to Mastercard MX to support real-time authorization for Ualá transactions and provides backend processing services for Ualá. 

Founded in 2017 by Buenos Aires-native and Harvard graduate Pierpaolo Barbieri, Ualá is a personal financial management mobile app linked to a Mastercard prepaid card that allows users to conduct financial transactions. Through its mobile application, users can carry out a wide variety of financial transactions, including transferring money, paying bills, loading balance on prepaid cell phones, and SUBE transport cards, among others. The app also allows users to track expenses through an analysis tool and charges no issuance, renewal, maintenance, and closing costs. The FinTech has issued 2.5 mn cards in Argentina, a number equivalent to almost 6% of the country’s population.

“Ualá has received global recognition and investment from some of the world’s biggest investors for good reason. The company has revolutionized financial services in Argentina, and Galileo is honored to help facilitate Ualá’s expansion into Mexico. With Galileo providing processing services, Ualá can focus on what it does best: innovative payments and creating a financially inclusive environment for all,” said Galileo In-Country Manager for Mexico Tory Jackson.

Ualá card will be available throughout Mexico, for anyone over 18, in iOS and Android. It can be topped up through SPEI transfers or cash deposits in more than 14,000 stores nationwide and used to make purchases using contactless, chip and offline PIN technology. 

“Making personal finances more innovative, more accessible and more inclusive in Latin America is our dream. Mexico is a huge step forward for our company, and as Ualá embarks on this new journey, we are privileged to have an established partner like Galileo providing the processing services and expertise we need to support this international growth,” said Andrea Arrebola, head of payments of Ualá.

Founded in 2000, Galileo provides APIs and payments platform to create sophisticated card-based and digital financial solutions. The PayTech company offers fraud detection, decision-making analytics, security, and regulatory compliance functionality combined with customized, and flexible programs to assist payments companies and to solve payments challenges.