Expansion of the open banking model across Latin America is expected to boost the business of Montevideo-based fintech Prometeo, specialists in solutions for the integration of financial information. Open banking is a set of rules and technologies that allows the sharing of customer data and services, with clients’ consent, between financial institutions through the integration of their systems. The idea behind it is to increase transparency and competition, and so generate innovative business models and lower prices. Large banks tend to lose the monopoly over their customers’ information while smaller and digital banks have a lot to gain from accessing this data. Prometeo already claims to be the largest open banking platform in Latin America in terms of connections to its application programming interfaces (APIs), which are the building blocks to enable financial systems’ interconnectivity and customer information sharing.
Prometeo also has in its base some of the largest banks in Latin America, such as Banco Nación (Argentina); Bradesco, Itaú and Santander (Brazil); Banco Estado (Chile); Bancolombia and Davivienda (Colombia), Banco del Pacifico (Ecuador); Banorte, CitiBanamex and Santander (Mexico); Banco Nacional (Panama); CP Telecrédito, Scotiabank and SUNAT (Peru); and BCU, Itaú and Santander (Uruguay). Among the largest economies in the region, Mexico and Brazil are currently the only countries with specific regulations for open banking, while Colombia and Chile are moving forward in discussions to create rules for the exchange of financial information between institutions.