Visa buys Brazil-based Pismo for $1b

The payments giant is looking to expand its presence in Latin America

Visa has acquired Sao Paulo-headquartered core banking platform Pismo for $1b in cash to expand its footprint in Latin America. 

By acquiring Pismo, one of the biggest fintech M&A deals of the year, Visa will be able to provide core banking and issuer processing capabilities across debt, prepaid, credit and commercial cards for clients via cloud native APIs.  

Pismo’s platform will also enable Visa to provide support and connectivity for emerging payment rails, such as Pix in Brazil, for financial institution clients.  

Founded in 2016, Pismo hosts 80m accounts across its operations in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Europe. Its investors include Redpoint Ventures, Softbank and Amazon.  

Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa, said: “Through the acquisition of Pismo, Visa can better serve our financial institution and fintech clients with more differentiated core banking and issuer solutions they can offer their customers.”  

Ricardo Josua, co-founder and chief executive officer of Pismo, commented: “At Pismo, we aim to enable our clients to launch cutting-edge payments and banking products within a single cloud-native platform—regardless of rails, geography or currency.  

“Visa provides us unrivalled support to expand our footprint globally and help shape a new era for banking and payments.”  

Pismo will retain its founders, Ricardo Josua, Daniela Binatti, Juliana Binatti, and Marcelo Parise, and current management team as part of the deal, Visa said.  

This deal is the largest fintech exit in Latin America since Nubank went public at the end of 2021.  

Image: Canva 

Josh Poyser Josh Poyser is an editor at FinTech Intel. He has written about fintech for several years and appeared at FinTech Connect 2023 on the 'Unlocking Success: The Art of Fintech PR' panel.