Ualá closes the purchase of Eurnekian’s digital bank

Finally Ala obtained the approval of the Central Bank to be able to operate Wilobank, the first digital bank in Argentina and which was created by the entrepreneur Eduardo Eurnekian. Thus, the unicorn of Pierpaolo Barbieri you can offer new services to your customers, such as enabling wages, pensions, pensions and social assistance. These are things that a fintech cannot do without the corresponding license.

To date and in his short journey, Ualá has 2 own banks (Argentina and also in Colombia) e has announced plans to buy another one in Mexico (ABC Capital), which is subject to approval by that country’s regulator. That is, it can integrate the business of a financial technology company with that of a traditional bankeven if they are completely digital.

vala has cool wallpapers and that is why it climbs steeply. Last year, managed to raise 350 million dollars by private investors, who It was valued at $ 2.45 billion. which allowed him to enter to the exclusive unicorn club. Its goal is to expand the platform across the region, but for now it operates in Argentina (where it has 4 million cards issued), Mexico (another 500,000) and Colombia.

In the latter country, fintech created its own digital bank, also called Ualá, from scratch, obtaining “a license to operate as a financing company in Colombia”, all under the supervision of the regulators of that country.

From Ualá they explained Clarione fundamental plans for Wilobank, at least initially. “In principle, it will be a subsidiary of the central financial group“and added that” from next week they will formally begin the transfer of control of the entity “, which now has 50 employees. Eurnekian, for its part, will join the board of Ualá, a right that assists it in being one of fintech shareholders.

In its almost 5 years of life, Ualá already received investments of US $ 520 million. In the latest round, in August last year, it raised contributions from various funds and companies, including China’s Tencent, SoftBank, George Soros and Goldman Sachs. With much of this capital, it has managed to enter all the markets in which it operates and now positions itself as one of the main competitors of Mercado Pago, the financial arm of Mercado Libre.

With the approval of the Central, Ualá all weapons are aimed at merging with Wilobank. In a statement, the fintech explained that both platforms will integrate their services: “Ualá users will keep their virtual account and the services they already have. Likewise, Wilobank users will keep their current services and conditions.”

Barbieri had high hopes of obtaining the Wilobank license. The operation was announced in March 2021 and since then the plant has started a long process to validate the merger. Days ago, a source from the body led by Miguel Pesce confided that “the process is going well and there is little to be done”. This Thursday, 15 months later, the BCRA “approved the business plan, which guarantees proper service and functioning and a wider range of offers for financial services users.”