Arcus Selected as the Winner of the 2020 Visa Everywhere Initiative Challenge

Arcus’ fintech-as-a-service infrastructure is chosen as the overall winner and audience favorite as part of the 2020 Visa Everywhere Initiative focused on global fintech innovation

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Arcus, a fintech-as-a-service platform, has been announced as the “Overall Winner” and the “Audience Favorite” as part of the 2020 Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), earning a grand total prize of $75K USD. Arcus was selected out of an initial pool of 1,300 applications dedicated to solving fintech’s most pressing global challenges.

Reflecting the diversity of today's innovation landscape, Visa Everywhere Initiative's talent pool exhibited cutting-edge technology to help support and move the payments industry forward. Since first launching in the U.S. in 2015, the Visa Everywhere Initiative has since expanded to include more than 7,000+ applying startups from over 100 countries, collectively raising over $2.5 billion in funding. As one of Visa's premier global programs for innovation, Visa Everywhere Initiative aims to address the most critical business challenges in today's market.

“Fintechs like Arcus are dedicated to helping the fintech ecosystem grow – this is exactly the kind of innovation we love to support through the Visa Everywhere Initiative,” said Terry Angelos, SVP and Global Head of Fintech, Visa. “We congratulate Arcus and look forward to helping them expand and commercialize their solution, bringing more of the world’s unbanked population into the formal, digital payments ecosystem.”

Arcus’ fintech-as-a-service platform is designed to help businesses launch innovative fintech products across the Americas. Arcus’ flexible API enables businesses in any industry to develop, build and go to market with financial products that solve consumers’ challenges. Businesses can leverage Arcus’ platform to gain turnkey access to essential banking services including payment, financial data and digital wallet services.

Furthermore, Arcus’ sustainable and scalable infrastructure provides a path to bankify the unbanked. With Arcus’ digital wallet services, businesses can provide cash-centric consumers with a seamless way to digitize their finances at more than 65,000 retail locations in the Arcus’ network¹. Businesses can leverage Arcus’ payment and financial data services to build simplified ways for their consumers to manage and pay their bills.

“Nearly half of Latin American’s 625 million people are unbanked². Digitization is the first step to bankification, which starts with giving people an easier way to turn their cash into digital currency,” says Edrizio De La Cruz, co-founder and CEO of Arcus. “Arcus’ Cash-to-Digital solution enables consumers to load a digital wallet with cash at more than 65,000 retail locations. Then, using our infrastructure, businesses can expand that consumer’s financial experience by helping him or her manage bills and pay for e-commerce services. Partnering with Visa would help us to add P2P and card issuing capabilities to our infrastructure. Ultimately, digitizing and bankifiying the consumer in one step.”

About Arcus

Arcus is the leading platform making fintech possible for everyone. Arcus’ fintech-as-a-service platform helps businesses launch fintech products and services. The world’s largest and most innovative companies choose Arcus to launch fintech products across the Americas including BBVA, Santander, Walmart, 7-Eleven and Rappi. The company is based in New York City and has raised $16M from Y-Combinator, Ignia, Maverick, Winklevoss, Initialized, HOF and Kapor. For more information, please visit https://www.arcusfi.com/.

¹Arcus Data, 2020
²“ Global Findex,” World Bank, 2017