Indonesia’s Xendit Bets On Latin America To Replicate Its Southeast Asia Payments Play
Xendit, a Jakarta-founded payments company, is making a high-stakes push into Latin America to prove its “one-API” model can tame one of the world’s most fragmented checkout landscapes.
The company plans to start operations in Mexico and Colombia by the end of 2025, then expand to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in 2026.
Founded in 2015, Xendit says it processes more than $70 billion a year across seven Asian markets for over 10,000 active clients, and it vaulted into unicorn status after a 2021 funding round that helped lift total financing above $500 million.
The pitch is simple: one connection for many local ways to pay and get paid. In practice, Latin America is a maze. Brazil’s Pix has upended habits by letting people pay instantly from bank accounts at any hour.
Mexico relies on SPEI real-time transfers and the QR-based CoDi overlay. Colombia’s PSE bank-to-bank system and newer instant options such as Transfiya are widely used by merchants and consumers.
Chile still leans heavily on cards via Transbank’s Webpay. None of this is standardized, and compliance rules vary country by country. That’s the story. The story behind the story is about who wins the new trade routes of the internet.
Xendit Could Simplify Cross-Border Payments in Latin America
Social commerce and cross-border e-retail from Asia are flowing into Latin America; shoppers want to pay with local rails, in local currency, and receive refunds or payouts quickly.
If Xendit can abstract the plumbing—cards, wallets, bank transfers, even cash vouchers—into one reliable interface, it lowers cost and complexity for global brands entering the region.
The obstacles are not theoretical. Uruguay’s dLocal and Brazil’s EBANX already connect international merchants to local methods at scale. Licenses, on-the-ground partnerships, settlement speed, FX handling, and dispute processes will decide market share.
Meanwhile, tighter anti-money-laundering scrutiny—including recent U.S. Treasury actions involving Mexican institutions—has made some banks more cautious on Asia–LatAm corridors, adding friction that only robust compliance and diversified banking routes can overcome.
For readers outside Brazil, the takeaway is clear: payments determine who gets to sell, hire, and build across borders.
If Xendit’s Southeast Asian playbook travels well, Latin America’s shoppers get more choice and often lower prices—and global merchants get a faster, cheaper on-ramp to a booming market. If it doesn’t, the local specialists will remain gatekeepers to the checkout.
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This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief