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As gambling regulations continue to develop at pace in Latin America, the global sector becomes increasingly fixated with the region. Operators and supplies are flocking to LatAm to achieve global growth ambitions,but require the technical expertise and capabilities to adequately support these operations.
There is perhaps no more important technology underpinning these operations than payment infrastructure. Possessing the necessary payment system to offer fast and secure payment is essential to success, and Latin America is no different in this regard.
One such company aiming to help operators in Latin America is OKTO. The company, which offers a range of payment solutions for operators and partners internationally , has solidified its presence in Chile, Peru, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, offering the relevant local payment methods for merchants.
Galina Bineva, OKTO’s Commercial Director, tells SBC Media that the firm is in constant dialogue with merchants about their needs and requirements in Latin America.
Speaking to SBC from SBC Summit 2024 in Lisbon, Bineva states: “We have a payment aggregation system and we support local payment methods in the markets of Chile, Peru, Mexico and Argentina. Whichever payment method is mostly used by the population in these areas, we offer it.
“One of the biggest challenges for the merchants is acceptance rates. Operators are still struggling with the instant nature of payments, as well as fraud risks. So we took all of this into consideration, and we built this whole proposition, highlighting the pain points of our merchants.”
Getting on top of these fast-paced changes and being ahead of the curve is crucial to Latin American success, Bineva asserts. A crucial enabler for OKTO in this regard is having boots on the ground in the region with a whole team of ‘local experts’ who know these markets inside out and can help implement new solutions quickly.
Ensuring that it adequately supports its clients, OKTO has regular dialogue with partners pertaining to specific pain points.
“When our trusted partners and merchants tell us, for example, they have difficulties with the payouts in Argentina and cannot find a good solution. We go there, investigate, dig in and invest a lot in the tech stack,” she explains.
“It’s a win-win situation for both of us because we also want to be relevant and add value to our partners, which is tangible. We want to offer something that is difficult, that solves a big problem for the merchant. With challenges like instant payouts, instant deposits, open banking acceptance rates and regulatory compliance aspects, we can offer solutions. This is why we go hand in hand with them.”
This cannot be done without the support of our local experts, who know both the market dynamics and technological solutions, but who also possess expert knowledge of the fast-evolving regulatory landscape in the region.
“The LatAm market is very fast developing, but it comes, of course, with challenges, and it’s something that Peru experienced recently,” says Bineva. “The legislation in Chile will most probably have some changes going on next year. Mexico and Argentina have very strict, very established, regulation policies, but the market dynamics are faster. Thankfully, we have local experts there.
Brazil is a beast of its own
When SBC chats with Bineva in Lisbon, it becomes abundantly clear that Brazil was the hot topic de jour. OKTO’s Commercial lead explains that partners and prospects were all too keen to hear about the firm’s solutions in Brazil and how they can help get ahead in the hotly-anticipated regulated market set to go live in January.
But for OKTO, its work in Brazil has been a long time coming, having operated in the country as a bank. OKTO offers its Pix solution and has acquired a financial licence to act as a direct Pix participant.
Alongside its local experts team, OKTO is supporting all of its partners to succeed when the market goes live as the clocks strike midnight to usher in the new year – and with it a new era for Brazil’s betting, sports and payments stakeholders.
Bineva outlines: “We really make sure to take all legal compliance and regulatory aspects into consideration in order to offer the suitable solutions that actually accelerate and support the merchants during these difficult and important times.”
With regulatory overhaul comes an awful lot of background work that must be done to ensure a smooth transition. While OKTO’s offering will always include things such as its high acceptance rates, Pix Direct, customer support, and anti-fraud checks, the firm is striving to higher standards to help partners transition to the new environment.
“Partners have to sort out balance migration – the fact that the balance of each customer needs to be moved from the pre-regulation world to the post-regulation world. It’s not so simple, and it has to be done smartly with as low cost as possible, and with a good customer experience.
“Otherwise, we are assisting our merchants with the authorization request so that they can apply for the payment service, for the post-regulation world. We are opening regulatory accounts for them, something that also needs facilitation, needs local knowledge, needs research advisors, but has different ways to be done, right, fast and, compliant.”
The truth is that OKTO has had an advantage over others in Brazil, due to its acquisition of U4C earlier in the year. This “happy union” ensures that stakeholders are aware that OKTO is a trustworthy partner in Brazil and that the firm has a robust tech stack tailor-made for local conditions.
In the coming months, OKTO will continue to guide clients through the transition to a regulated environment in Brazil as well as ensuring smooth operations across the whole Latin American region.
The firm will attend SBC Summit Latinoamerica in Miami later this month to showcase its capabilities and meet prospective clients.
Bineva jokes: “I’m sure that Brazil will still be the number one topic in Miami. I’m even afraid it will hijack the whole event!”
But OKTO has a whole range of solutions ready for the wider Latin American market, including the aggregation service, enabling partners to go live in multiple jurisdictions through just one integration.
“It’s a region of multiple countries that we are active in, and we offer one integration, one platform, one compliance process and one onboarding process,” Bineva explains. “Typically, if you launch in Mexico, for example, you don’t have only one payment method, you need to offer the whole suite of local payment methods.
“But imagine if you want to also access the market of Argentina. If you integrated each payment method in each country, you might start operations in 2035! We offer the whole suite of payment methods, not only on one specific market, but on the whole region.”
“We are trying to make our solution as complete as possible to reduce the friction for our merchants because this is what I think our mission is – to make their life easier,” she concludes.
