This document describes the Chile FinTech landscape, approaching the analysis from a FinTech, regulatory, Investment and talent standpoint.
This document serves as a snapshot of the key pillars of a FinTech ecosystem in a country and provides a good overall view of the state of FinTech at a glance.
Chile has a population of 18m people as of end-2017 and mobile internet users account for 72% as of January 2018 according to Wearesocial. Chile’s government is spurring innovation through investments in startups and loosening restrictions for larger companies looking to penetrate the Latin American market.
Key Findings:
- Chilean FinTechs are driving financial inclusion and SME finance
- Chile’s regulators have recently moved to increase regulatory clarity for FinTechs.
- As of year end 2017, according to Finnovista, there were a total of 75 FinTech startups in Chile, a 34% increase from 2016. The top FinTech segments in Chile is Payment and Remittances, Enterprise Financial Management and crowdfunding at 30%, 16% and 15% of the total number of FinTech startups respectively.
- A survey conducted by Finnovista showed that 22% of startups operate beyond the national border and the main market where Chilean startups operate in is Mexico (33%). Chile’s FinTech ecosystem is relatively young with 81% of the FinTechs surveyed by Finnovista being created during the last 4 years.
- 40% of Chilean FinTechs have a focus on the underbanked and unbanked population. Financial inclusion in Chile have been improving with 63% of the population above 15 years old having access to a bank account.
- FinTech Association of Chile, the industry association, was launched in March 2018 with the purpose of promoting and strengthening the 4 pillars for the proper development of the Fintech industry, namely Public policies and regulation; Education, development and attraction of talent; Attraction of capital and investments; and Promoting the use of Fintech business services. as of October 29, the association had 21 members.
- Chilean startups can access funding from both public and private sources. On the public side, Production Development Corporation (CORFO), founded in 1939, aims to promote economic development in Chile. For every $1 funds invested, the CORFO can match an additional US$2 or US$3 with low interest debt. CORFO also sponsors Chilean incubators up to US$310k in grants for operations each year. There are 18 incubators listed on CORFO’s site in 2016.
-Start-upChile, launched in 2010, is an accelerator with 2 mandates: to elevate Chile’s international profile and to build out a local culture of entrepreneurism. It offers up to CL$50 million (80K USD) in equity free funding across its programs & over 100K of perks as a participant and has attracted technology entrepreneurs from all over the world. As of October 2018, Start-Up Chile has worked with over 1,300 startups, 51% of which are still active.
