Celcoin, a startup that provides an open financial-services platform for fintechs and digital banks, released a new set of Open Banking APIs so users can share their data and receive better product and service offers.
With the new API, fintech and bank customers can securely share their financial data to get personalized offers on better terms. APIs are already available to share bank statements, credit-card bills, credit contracts (limits granted and used), and energy-consumption history and paid bills. From December, investment-balance data will also be available.
Among Celcoin’s 130 clients are more than 30 of the main banks and financial institutions that are ABBC members, 8 publicly traded companies, dozens of digital wallets, 7 fintechs considered unicorns, plus brokers, loyalty programs, and telecom operators. All of them will get access to the new APIs for the next two months at no extra cost, for integration and to build new experiences for their users.
“On our Open Finance platform we already serve the main digital banks and fintechs with transaction and financial-service APIs. We want to be their Open Banking solution as well,” says Marcelo França, CEO and founder of Celcoin.
The whole system for capturing, storing, and connecting user credentials uses sophisticated security technology—“secure and privacy by design”—built for data privacy and for Bacen resolution 4.658. It runs in a secure environment, and clients’ data and connections are erased after use. The API uses TLS VPN and strict security controls, in line with LGPD and Bacen resolution 4658. By adopting Celcoin’s solution, clients also get a module to manage the access consent users grant, ensuring compliance with Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD).
Today, fintechs and digital banks use Celcoin’s open finance platform to offer services once limited to the large banks—bill and tax payments, withdrawals on the Banco 24 Horas network and in retail, mobile and transit top-ups, transfers, and more. According to Marcelo França, the goal is to let fintechs focus on their core business without worrying about complementary services that every digital account still has to offer.
“We opened the market by enabling transactions digital banks and fintechs could not access before. Now we want our clients to build innovative experiences and become their users’ primary account,” he explains. The startup plans to apply this year for a license to act as a payment-initiation service provider.
ABOUT CELCOIN
Founded in 2016, Celcoin offers a platform that lets companies connect to the financial system simply and without bureaucracy, so they can offer innovative experiences—digitally, with more than 130 clients among banks, fintechs, brokers, and loyalty companies, and physically, with its own network of more than 33,000 digital correspondents in 3,100 Brazilian municipalities. A pioneer in its segment and 100% independent, Celcoin runs a unique multichannel strategy and already processes more than 11 million financial transactions and more than R$1.3 billion in monthly volume.
Celcoin was built to make it easier for new entrants to operate in a financial system that, until then, was closed, hard to access, and hard to connect to. With its Open Finance suite (Transaction APIs, Physical Network APIs, and Open Banking APIs), its solutions reach more than 8 million Brazilians every month, online and offline.
It raised a first round of R$6 million in 2019 from Vox Capital, the largest impact venture capital fund in LATAM, and a second round in 2020—led by Vox Capital with boostLab by BTG Pactual—of R$23 million.
In 2017 it was named “Best Startup in Brazil” by the Swiss investor group Seedstars and “Best Fintech in the Country” by BBVA Open Talent; in 2018 it was accelerated by the Visa Acceleration Program and by ScaleUp (Endeavor). Also in 2019 it received R$6 million from Vox Capital, the leading social-impact fund, and remains the only Latin America and Caribbean fintech to win the global “The Inclusive Fintech 50” award. In 2019 it was also certified as a Great Place to Work (GPTW) company. In 2020 it was accelerated by boostLab (by BTG Pactual) and named for the third year in a row on PEGN magazine’s 100 Startups to Watch list.