Fintoc bets bank-transfer payments beat cards as open finance lands in LatAm

API that lets online businesses accept instant account-to-account payments straight from customers' bank accounts.

That regulators would formalize bank transfers as a payment rail — and an API-first startup could win the account-to-account checkout market before card margins shrink.

$3.6M seed (2021), then $7M Series A (Apr 2024) for $10.6M total

Founded in Santiago in 2020 by Cristóbal Griffero and Lukas Zorich; went through Y Combinator W21; raised a $3.6M seed led by Monashees in 2021, pitching 'Plaid for LatAm' before pivoting to account-to-account payments.

In 2023, 1.8M people in Chile paid with Fintoc (~13% of the population), with ~1.2M monthly users and 400+ clients including Rappi and Larraín Vial. April 2024: $7M Series A led by Propel (total $10.6M) to make Mexico the main market. December 2025: authorized to connect directly to Banxico's SPEI, launched Transfers (pay-ins, payouts, refunds), with an IFPE license from CNBV. May 2026: CMF registered Fintoc Pagos as a non-bank issuer of prepaid payment accounts — the first CPF under the new central-bank rules, connected to Chile's CCA clearing rail.

Still scaling in two countries with licensed payment infrastructure; positioned for Chile's Open Finance System and payment-initiation rules to formalize the account-to-account market.

Bank transfers already dominated person-to-person payments in Chile; Fintoc simply formalized them for merchants, a demand that regulation later codified.

Account-to-account payments cut card interchange out of checkout — up to 70% cheaper processing, so merchants had a financial reason to switch, not just a legal one.

Chile's Fintech Law and the Open Finance System turned payment initiators into a regulated category, which is what made the company bankable for Propel and Monashees.

Licenses compounded: CMF issuer registration in Chile and IFPE plus direct SPEI access in Mexico made Fintoc infrastructure rather than just a checkout button.

Fintoc built account-to-account rails before the law; Chile's Fintech Law then turned its niche into a regulated, fundable category. Regulation legitimized demand that was already there.

As of September 2026, Fintoc is scaling in Chile and Mexico with licensed payment infrastructure: a CMF registration as non-bank CPF issuer connected to Chile's CCA clearing rail, and an IFPE license with direct SPEI access in Mexico through its Transfers product. Chile's Open Finance System implementation is still rolling out — the CMF consulted on a 12-month extension in late 2025 — so the fully regulated market, and the interchange-fee debate around bank transfers, is still ahead. Fintoc's stated goal is 100 million payers by 2030.