Local First: PayRetailers urges FinTechs to rethink expansion

By Vriti Gothi

As global FinTech players continue to target Latin America (LATAM) as a high-growth region for digital payments and financial services, the promise of a seamless cross-border payment network remains more of a long-term vision than a current reality. While the appetite for digital commerce is accelerating across the continent, the infrastructure needed to support regional interoperability is still fragmented both legally and operationally.

Tristán Torres Velat, Chief Commercial Officer at PayRetailers, believes that despite growing industry efforts, the practical barriers to integration remain high.

At the heart of this challenge is the diversity of the region’s regulatory landscape. Each country across LATAM including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina, enforces distinct licensing frameworks, data protection laws, tax regimes, and compliance standards. This creates a complex web that cross-border FinTechs must unravel before they can achieve meaningful scale.

Unlike regions such as the European Union, where standardised regulatory frameworks like PSD2 have enabled greater cohesion in payments infrastructure, LATAM’s decentralised systems offer little in the way of harmonisation. That lack of alignment makes the pursuit of regional payment integration more complicated and potentially costlier.

PayRetailers’ approach stands in contrast to the fast-scaling, borderless model often associated with Silicon Valley FinTechs. Instead, the company advocates for a deeply localised strategy that prioritises compliance, cultural relevance, and ecosystem partnerships over speed.

For PayRetailers, that means investing heavily in local operations, obtaining country-specific authorisations, and tailoring payment experiences to regional consumer behaviours. From preferred payment methods to banking infrastructure and fraud risk tolerances, every detail matters when designing a market-specific solution.

While the idea of a regional payments union akin to Europe’s SEPA continues to surface in FinTech forums, Torres Velat remains realistic about its near-term feasibility.

Still, the opportunity in LATAM is undeniable. Smartphone penetration is high and growing, with a large share of the population either underbanked or entirely outside the formal financial system. Governments across the region are also introducing open banking reforms, central bank digital currencies, and faster payment rails — all designed to foster innovation and inclusion.

For FinTechs willing to take a long-view approach, LATAM offers fertile ground. But success depends on navigating complexity, not avoiding it. For PayRetailers and like-minded players, building locally-resilient infrastructure isn’t just a strategy it’s a prerequisite for sustainable growth.

Tristán Torres Velat, Chief Commercial Officer at PayRetailers said: “There’s a growing push to create more integrated payments infrastructure across Latin America. The path to regional interoperability is far from straightforward. Every market has its own legal frameworks, licensing models, and regulatory expectations, making a truly unified approach incredibly complex. While the idea of seamless cross-border payments is appealing, the execution still depends on deep local expertise. Fintechs that succeed aren’t skipping over borders, they’re embedding in each market: securing licences, adapting to local rules, and building payment flows that actually work on the ground. Until there’s greater alignment across the region, any talk of a regional payments union is more aspirational than actionable. The reality today is localisation first, integration second and that’s what providers must plan for.”