Mexico

Mastercard to Extend Real-Time Payments to Latin America With Arcus Acquisition

Mastercard has acquired Mexico-based Arcus Financial Intelligence to support bill pay solutions and other real-time payment applications across Latin America.

Arcus provides bill pay and cash-in, cash-out services for billers, retailers, fintechs and traditional financial institutions in the US and Latin America.

The acquisition will enable Mastercard to boost the roll out of its Mastercard Bill Pay service in Latin America.

The service allows users to view, manage and pay their household and personal bills from their preferred financial service provider’s app.

In the US, it is live as Mastercard Bill Pay Exchange with banks and credit unions and a network of 135,000 billers.

The statement said that the company’s flagship solution, the Arcus Pay Network, has access to the largest retailers and billers in Mexico.

The company also recently received approval to provide payment processing, settlement and reconciliation through Mexico’s real-time Interbank Electronic Payment System (Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios, or SPEI).

Iñigo Rumayor

“Edrizio de la Cruz and I began this company to help immigrants like us have a proper way to track our finances and send money home.

For nearly a decade, we have grown from those aspirations to help pave the way toward greater financial inclusion in Latin America,”

Co-founder of Arcus, Iñigo Rumayor, said.

Laura Cruz

“The past year has shown how critical digital solutions are for people and businesses across the region.

With the addition of the Arcus team, we will enhance existing payment experiences and create new opportunities to address every day needs by connecting more people to the digital economy,”

Laura Cruz, division president for Mexico and Central America at Mastercard, said.

This article first appeared on Fintech News Switzerland.

Featured image: Unsplash (edited)