What You Need to Know About Chile’s Fast-Maturing Fintech Market

Against the backdrop of a Latin America fintech market that is rapidly evolving as a whole, Chile stands out as a nation where the sector is becoming particularly mature, according to a new report from Finnovista, in collaboration with Galileo and Mastercard. 

The study revealed a notable reduction in volatility in 2024, with fewer new fintech entrants than in previous years, but fewer exits and a greater overall penetration and market size. Those findings indicate that fintech is establishing a solid mainstream foothold in Chile–one that can support further market maturation in the years ahead.

The stats on Chile’s fintech maturation 

As of 2024, there were 348 active fintech startups in Chile, a 16 percent increase over 2023, according to the newly released, sixth annual Fintech Radar Chile report. That year-over-year growth rate was down from 34 percent over the period from 2021 to 2022 and 25 percent in 2022-2023, reflecting a slowdown in new startups entering the market. 

However, the sector’s exit rate–the number of startups leaving the market due to closing or being acquired–also is slowing, dropping to just 10.7 percent in 2024. That’s a reduction of nearly half from 20 percent exit rate in 2020-2021–just three years prior–the study found. 

The report also uncovered another notable sign of advancing market maturation: a high level of diversity across various fintech segments. Among Chile’s fintechs, 17.8 percent specialized in providing enterprise financial management, while 15.8 focused on payment and remittance services, the study found. 

Those leading segments were followed closely by lending and technological infrastructure for banks and fintechs, with 12.6 percent of Chile-based fintechs operating in each of those segments. Property technology (10.6 percent), wealth management (9.8 percent) and insurtech (8.9 percent) also had significant presences, helping make Chile’s fintech sector “one of the most diversified” in all of LatAm, the report said.

Along with domestic providers, foreign fintechs also are helping drive the maturation of Chile’s fintech landscape; in 2024, 137 non-Chile-based providers had a presence there, according to the report, comprising 28 percent of the overall market. These foreign fintechs also served a highly diversified range of segments, with payments and remittances (20.6 percent), technological infrastructure for banks and fintechs (16.3 percent) and enterprise financial management (15.1 percent) leading the way, the study found.

3 key trends shaping Chile’s fintech landscape  

Along with revealing the numbers behind the maturation of Chile’s fintech market, the study also uncovered several key trends and developments that will shape the industry in the years ahead:

1. The B2B market is hot 

In 2024, nearly 64 percent of Chile’s fintechs directed their products and services to business customers–and a growing number are targeting large corporations and financial institutions. In 2021, those two customer segments comprised 27 percent of the market; in 2024, that share grew to 37 percent. These indicators suggest that the sale of products leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence for large enterprises is a “significant trend that sets Chile apart” from other markets in LatAm, the Fintech Radar report said. 

2. Payments and remittances are booming

Chilean fintechs dedicated to payments and remittances have seen a notable increase in transaction volumes in recent years, the report found. In 2022, only 25 percent of the payment and remittance fintechs in the country exceeded US$100 million in transaction volume. In 2024, that figure rose to 42.9 percent, and is expected to reach 60.7 percent by 2025, according to the study.  The payments and remittance segment has been a particular focus of foreign-based fintechs entering Chile, with one in three outside fintechs operating in that vertical. This influx of foreign providers has helped increase diversification of payment and remittance product types, and driven an overall increase in card issuance, according to the study. 

3. Fintech friendly regulators

Chile’s regulatory environment is one of the most positively perceived in LatAm, with 55 percent of Radar survey respondents stating the country’s framework was comparatively better than others in the region. The Chilean Fintech Law, which was enacted in early 2023 to promote financial innovation and inclusion, is widely viewed as a major driver of fintech opportunity in the country. However, survey respondents urged that additional dialogue between regulators and the industry was needed in order to refine implementation of the law and account for the evolving dynamics of the sector. 

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Want to learn more?

Explore the rapidly evolving Chilean fintech market in our new Fintech Radar report.