Amazon Launches Brazilian Mastercard Via Banco Bradesco

Amazon has teamed with Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco to offer a credit card in that country.

The launch of the card is set for this week, CEO Octavio de Lazari Jr. told Reuters Friday (Aug. 4), in a report that noted this is Amazon’s latest bid to expand its FinTech capabilities.

According to the report, Banco Bradesco will be responsible for the card’s credit risk. The card itself will be powered by Mastercard.

Earlier this summer, Amazon teamed with YouLend to help small businesses in Great Britain finance in a tough lending environment.

The partnership between Amazon and the embedded financing platform gives merchants cash advances tied to their sales, allowing them to make repayments as they earn.

“The new revenue-based financing model means that merchants can grow their businesses and build-out inventory, secure new equipment or ramp up their marketing with the assurance of transparent and capped rates as well as repayment based on current sales,” Amazon said in a news release.

This year also saw Amazon Pay team with Citi to offer card members the ability to pay in installments.

“Customers want flexible payment options and merchants want to offer that flexibility but don’t always have the resources to do so,” Omar Soudodi, director of Amazon Pay, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

The partnership, he added, “is a win-win for both customers and merchants — customers have a new, convenient way to pay for their purchases and merchants can seamlessly offer new and existing customers more choice, affordability, and flexibility in how they pay.”

And that collaboration came on the heels of the debut of Amazon Pay’s Express Payout, created to give merchants faster access to working capital in amounts of up to $1 million.

“With this new feature, merchants can reap the benefits of their sales and tackle the unexpected costs of expanding their business in an ever-evolving economic climate — with payouts at the fast speed Amazon is known for,” Soudodi said.

The company’s credit card launch in Brazil comes months after news that 40% of consumers in that country were facing defaults as debts continued to climb.