Stori Expands to Colombia, Aims to Serve Underbanked Consumers

Mexican FinTech startup Stori has begun its expansion into Colombia.

The company said it will spend $100 million on the project over the next three years and has named former Rappi head of payments Carlos Ayalde to lead its operations in Colombia, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Aug. 29).

Stori focuses on underbanked consumers and offers payment cards and high-interest deposit accounts, according to the report. In Colombia, it will offer credit lines starting at 200,000 pesos ($50) to customers, whether or not they have a credit history.

In Mexico, Stori added 3 million active users over the past four years and was the first company to provide a credit card to about 80% of the consumers who became Stori cardholders, per the report.

Stori announced its arrival in Colombia in a Thursday post on LinkedIn, saying it sees an opportunity to grow in the country.

“Our purpose has always been to bring inclusion and opportunities to those who the traditional system has left behind and today we celebrate a new beginning and a future full of possibilities for millions of Colombians,” the company said in the post, as translated by LinkedIn. “Under the leadership of Carlos Ayalde and with a passionate and world-class team, this international expansion not only seeks to improve lives, but also to be part of the growth and transformation of the financial infrastructure in Colombia.”

Stori said Aug. 6 that it raised $212 million in equity and debt financing and will use the new funding to develop products to promote financial inclusion.

“Since the beginning, my co-founders and I recognized the unfair gap in the traditional financial system in Mexico, which has historically served only certain sectors of the population,” Marlene Garayzar, co-founder at Stori, said at the time in a press release. “So we set off on our mission to facilitate access to finance, empowering Mexicans and, in the long term, many more people across Latin America.”

Stori launched its first credit card in 2020, aimed at consumers overlooked by traditional lenders. The company reached unicorn status in 2022 when a funding round raised its valuation to $1.2 billion.