Among the tens of millions of recent immigrants from Latin America in the United States, managing money often is a major struggle. Many in this population lack the official immigration status and identification necessary to open a bank account, leading to difficulties in paying bills and sending funds to relatives back in their home countries, as well as saving and building a successful financial future. 

Why Latin America Is a Hotbed for Fintech Innovation

MyBambu aims to break down these barriers, providing banking products to financially underserved Latin American immigrants to the U.S. The Florida-based neobank and fintech offers FDIC-insured deposit accounts, linked Visa-branded payment cards and the ability to remit funds to nearly 20 LatAm countries, along with other financial services. 

Galileo recently spoke with its client, Doug Quay, CEO and chairman of MyBambu about how the company is helping the large–and growing–LatAm immigrant demographic in the U.S. access vital tools to establish a solid financial foundation in their new home country.

Client Mission: MyBambu aims to reduce the number of immigrants who have trouble managing their money due to their immigration status by offering an array of mobile-based financial services to users, regardless of their immigration status, with no social security number needed to enroll. 

“Many of our customers are recent arrivals, and they may not understand what a bank account is,” Quay noted. “We provide bilingual support to help them through the process and have videos and how-tos to make them comfortable with opening an account. The onboarding process is streamlined, and we accept over 500 ID types to board customers rapidly.”

Founding: Formed in 2019, MyBambu launched its financial services platform to users in 2021.

What Galileo Does for Them: Galileo provides payment processing and authorization for transactions made via MyBambu’s prepaid Visa card. 

“Galileo's open APIs allow us to roll out products rapidly,” remarked Quay.

“There are probably 20 million to 30 million Latinos in the U.S. that are unbanked or underbanked, and that number has significantly increased,” Quay said. “We offer FDIC-insured accounts, linked Visa cards, and our customers can send money to 18 countries in Latin America at a very low price. They can pay domestic and international bills, top up prepaid phones and more.”

To enroll new customers quickly and easily, MyBambu collects ID from the country of origin, and verifies it using facial recognition. Within “minutes,” the customer gets an activated digital Visa prepaid card that can be embedded into a mobile wallet, and they can also request an optional physical card.

Impact: “We want to take advantage of the $110 billion sent annually from the U.S. to Latin America,” noted Quay. “We plan to issue Galileo-backed cards in Latin America to move funds seamlessly and cheaply, further serving the Latino community's needs.”