☀️ Good morning!
Yesterday, a new commission-free app was launched for Latin American investors to trade on U.S. markets. Vest, whose founding team includes two former Credijusto employees, is also looking into allowing trading on the Mexican stock market. The app comes with an accompanying financial education plan.
It's not the first company in Latam on a similar path. Goonder, an Argentinean startup branded as "the Tinder for stock traders", ventured into this market in 2019. GBM+ opened up U.S. stock trading for Mexican investors last year. Trii is the first app that allows international and local stock trading in Colombia, and it's planning to expand to Peru and Chile.
But Vest launches almost exactly a year after the GameStop saga; a very messy situation on Wall Street that nonetheless drew attention to the appetite new investors, empowered by commission-free apps, are having after the pandemic.
Latam is echoing this interest in investing both in traditional stocks and cryptocurrencies. Argentina and Brazil have a larger crypto adoption than Russia and China, and investing is a popular use. The number of Mexican stock investors grew 136% between 2020 and 2021.
With a gloomy outlook on millennials' retirement options, and exchange rate volatility still haunting regional economies, it's not surprising that diversified investment options will keep becoming popular.
Besides, as more regional unicorns are going public in the U.S. stock markets, apps that give access to regional investors to trade there is a nice way of thinking about a wealth creation cycle in the Latam ecosystem.
–Daniela Dib
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