The Mexican neobank issuing credit cards for over a million underbanked individuals

Gabriela Estrada spent years working in the banking industry in Mexico, where only one in four people have a bank card. In 2018, Estrada co-founded Vexi, a neobank that has approved more than a million credit cards, including many for previously underbanked families.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How did the idea for Vexi come about?

I was about 25 years old and working at Citibanamex when I applied for my first credit card and was rejected. That’s when the bubble burst, and I realized that very few young people were getting approved and banks only gave out second or third cards. This was happening within my own white, middle socioeconomic level. I grew frustrated with my lack of ability to move the bank towards developing more inclusive products.

What’s your approval rate for new clients?

Our approval is above 80%. For those who are not creditworthy, we offer alternatives, such as a pre-funded credit card with a 450 peso ($25) credit line. If they are willing to pay an opening fee and begin their story with us, we get much more information about their transactional behavior, their retailing behavior, etc. We are better able to underwrite them or give them a credit line increase in the future.

Who is your competition?

Thankfully, there are a bunch of fintechs right now trying to make a difference. But we are not competing against banks — we are competing against cash. Around 90% of transactions in Mexico are done in cash. If we take only 1% of those and turn them into Vexi transactions, that could represent $2 billion in revenue for our company. We’ll focus on Mexico first and then start thinking about bringing our solution to other markets. ▰

Karla Zabludovsky is the Latin America Editor at Rest of World. She has covered Latin America extensively for BuzzFeed News and The New York Times.