Payment Decision Over Corporate Cards in LatAm
René Saul and Fernando Sandoval, co-founders at Kapital, on the fintech opportunity in LatAm
Kapital is betting that the real wedge in LatAm SMB finance is not the card, but the payment decision. A card makes spending easy after a vendor is already on file, while Kapital is trying to sit one step earlier, where a business owner or finance team reviews invoices, catches abnormal charges, and chooses whether to pay now, later, or with financing. That gives Kapital more data, more workflow control, and more ways to sell software and credit together.
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The product is built around accounts payable and receivable inside the bank account. Users can see who they owe, who owes them, click into a bill, send payment to a vendor, or send a collection link to a customer, instead of only seeing card transactions after the money is already gone.
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This is also a business model choice. In LatAm, card interchange is only about 0.5% to 0.9%, so a pure corporate card model is weaker than in the U.S. Kapital instead pairs subscription software with lending, and reported revenue mix was about 60% interest income and 40% tech revenue.
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That is why Kapital frames Konfio, Klar, Clara, and Mendel as narrower products. Konfio is described as digital lending, Klar as cards, and Clara and Mendel as expense and card tools, while Kapital is trying to own the operating account and treasury workflow where all company cash in and cash out passes through.
The next step is deeper automation. As more vendor payments, payroll, collections, and financing move into one workflow, the winning product in LatAm SMB fintech is likely to look less like a standalone card and more like a daily operating system for cash flow. That favors companies that control the account, the invoice data, and the moment a payment gets approved.