BOGOTA (Reuters) – Rappi, the SoftBank-backed Colombian delivery app, will be allowed to offer digital banking services following approval from the Andean country’s financial regulator, the company said.
Colombia’s financial watchdog cleared RappiPay, a joint venture between Rappi and bank Banco Davivienda, to operate as a digital bank, the company said late on Thursday.
“Now, deposit and savings products will be offered by the financial entity RappiPay via its own platform,” Rappi said in a statement.
Until now, RappiPay has offered a credit card and an online deposit account, as well as other financial services in Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Chile – depending on local regulations – but without offering the full services of an online bank.
In Colombia, RappiPay already has some 800,000 users and has issued some 200,000 credit cards.
RappiPay boss Gabriel Migowski told Reuters last November that Rappi and Davivienda had agreed to invest $100 million in the financial platform.
Rappi, which was founded in 2015 and has received $1 billion in investment from Japan’s SoftBank, operates in 250 cities across nine countries in Latin America.
Last August, Rappi raised a little over $500 million in a funding round, taking its value to $5.25 billion.
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Mark Potter)
