The Argentine technology firm Ualá has resumed the opening of new accounts, after the brake to which it was forced after the rejection of the National Baking and Stock Commission (CNBV) to its service provider, the UnDosTres platform, which was seeking authorization as an institution of electronic payment funds under the law to Regulate Financial Technology Institutions, or fintech law.
Last November, the Argentine-born firm, which has reached more than 300,000 users in Mexico and has a value of 2.45 billion dollars, announced the acquisition of the ABC Capital bank, which would be subject to authorizations from Mexican regulators.
At that time, the technology company was prevented from opening new accounts in the country, since its service provider, UnDosTres, for which it was hanging from its operation, had been rejected by the CNBV to continue operations, which also affected Ualá.
UnDosTres applied for its license to operate as an institution of electronic payment funds under the ley fintech; However, by starting operations before the promulgation of the regulations, in March 2018, it was able to continue operating until the CNBV resolved its situation.
In this context, UnDosTres began to provide operations to third parties, in this case Ualá, especially in the services of electronic payment funds. For the Argentine firm, it was easier to enter the country via a digital wallet service provider than to start the entire authorization process from the beginning, which would have prevented it from starting immediately and would have forced it to wait until the regulatory endorsement. to start operations.
It was in October of last year, when the CNBV notified UnDosTres that it would not be authorized to operate under fintech law, for which it was prevented from opening new accounts and forced to direct the end of its operations, which it was currently in force.
This had an impact on Wow, which in one year of operations in the country added 300,000 people to its user base by granting a physical debit card and managing its resources via a mobile application.
Faced with the impediment of opening new accounts, Ualá began to survey the Mexican financial market in order to find out about the opportunities for the purchase of a regulated entity, aligned with its operation. In the first instance, it probed the market of popular financial companies (sofipos) to try to replicate the movement of Nu Mexico (subsidiary of the Brazilian giant) NuBank, which acquired the financial Akala; however, it did not find options in that segment.
He immediately turned to see the banking segment, where ABC Capital emerged as the most viable option to conclude a sale and purchase agreement, as it had solvency problems with the risk of being revoked.
It was a matter of weeks for Ualá, led by Pierpaolo Barbieri, and ABC Capital, led by the renowned Mario Laborín Gómez, to reach an agreement, which was not disclosed, but it was reported that the bank’s shareholders would remain in the structure of the Argentine technology company, now with a banking license in Mexico.
A few days ago, Ualá in Mexico was able to resume opening new accounts. “The accounts and debit cards associated with these, as well as any of the other services and / or products offered on this page under the” Ualá “brand, are opened, issued, offered and managed exclusively by ABC Capital, SA” , can be read on the page of the technology firm.
According to what is reported on the Ualá platform, ABC Capital is solely responsible for the administration of the new accounts and this bank is duly authorized to use the registered trademark of the technology company, without detailing whether the CNBV It has already given the definitive guarantee to the sale of the banking institution.
“Our 2022 roadmap in @uala_arg and @uala_mx is really fabulous. But the best ideas always come from our users. What do we need to do? What do you want from Ualá that we don’t have? ”Pierpaolo Barbieri posted a few days ago on his Twitter account.