B2B Financing Firm Tribal Forms Partnership With Visa

Visa has formed a partnership with B2B financing firm Tribal to expand its services for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the Caribbean and Latin America.

As Reuters reported Monday (Feb. 28), Tribal says the partnership will focus on expanding credit lines, improving card distribution and enhancing safety and encryption measures.

Tribal, backed by investors such as SoftBank’s Latin America Fund, offers credit cards and payment options — which include blockchain technology and stablecoins — to SMBS throughout Latin America.

Read also: FinTechs Offer LATAM SMBs Speedy Access to Credit in Emerging Markets

The company’s platform lets SMBs make payments to employees, suppliers or merchants — online or in-store, while also keeping local needs in mind. For example, in Mexico, Tribal Credit integrated the platform with the nation’s tax authority.

In addition, Tribal offers a one-stop shop where companies can manage their expenses, integrate with their enterprise resource planning systems and move information.

Last month, the company announced it had raised raised $40 million in a debt round, which included $20 million USDC from the Stellar Development Foundation and $20 million from venture debt funding firm Partners for Growth.

That funding follows a $34.3 million Series A, which also included contributions from Partners for Growth, that Tribal concluded in April of 2021.

Read more: B2B Financing Platform Tribal Raises $40M

Last year saw Tribal announce plans to expand its operations into Chile, Colombia and Peru, with the goal on moving into other Latin American countries as 2022 continues. The company has said that small businesses in that part of the world often struggle to gain access to credit and payment rails due to strictly regulated and tightly controlled market.

“So, what we want to do in these Latin American markets is to open up access to credit,” Arvind Nimbalker, global head of product at Tribal Credit, said in an interview with PYMNTS.

“We have a proprietary algorithm which helps us underwrite these companies and give them access to credit, and using that credit, they can use the Tribal platform to make payments to virtually and literally anybody in the world.”