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Arturo Villanueva<\/span><\/a> spent over four years on Stripe\u2019s financial partnerships team, <\/span>where he led partnerships with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and regional banks across Latin America, struck strategic deals with JPMorgan Chase, Wells-Fargo, and Bank of America in the U.S., and the underlying infrastructure partners for the fintech giant\u2019s cross-border payouts product, allowing Stripe to make payments in over 100 countries.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when it clicked, and I realized \u2014 \u2018ah, you can really craft infrastructure in a really thoughtful way that allows you to solve pertinent issues,\u2019\u201d he told TechCrunch. \u201cAnd then having been an immigrant in the U.S. and seeing how difficult banking was, I married those two things together, and Alza was born.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Founded in October of 2021, <\/span>Alza<\/span><\/a> is a startup aimed at helping meet the various banking needs of Latin or Central Americans who have moved to the U.S. <\/span>Launching publicly today, Alza has spent the past two years building its products, securing partnerships and developing compliant infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n In recent years, the number of startups focused on providing financial services to specific demographics in the U.S. climbed exponentially. Numerous companies (such as Welcome Technologies<\/a>, Maza <\/a>and Majority<\/a>) are focused on acquiring customers who have emigrated from a Spanish-speaking or Latin American country.<\/span><\/p>\n With Alza, users get an FDIC-insured checking account and debit card. But that\u2019s not really unique. What makes Alza stand out, claims Villanueva, is that users also get the ability to send cross-border remittances to more than 20 countries in Latin or Central America embedded in its app via three methods, depending on the recipient country: bank transfer, cash pick-up or transfer to a debit card.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese transfers are generally same-day and offered at a competitive rate,\u201d Villanueva said. \u201cOne way to think about it is, the user base we are going after already experiences unnecessary friction when opening one financial services account. Setting up multiple accounts for all their money movement needs creates a chilling effect, hindering their entry into the American economy. We\u2019re smoothening that experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Alza<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Users can also make peer-to-peer payments. Interestingly, Alza has worked to provide a more inclusive verification process. For example, individuals can apply for an account with a variety of IDs, including Social Security number, individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN,) international passports, consular cards, some driver licenses as well as national ID cards from LatAm. The service is fully bilingual in English and Spanish.<\/span><\/p>\n As most fintechs offering banking services do, Alza emphasizes that it is not a bank. First Internet Bank of Indiana, a member of the FDIC, provides the banking services and issues Alza\u2019s card, pursuant to a license from Mastercard International. The Bancorp provides cross-border transfer services. Villanueva said that Alza is immigration-status agnostic, as it is \u201cstrictly operating\u201d within the framework dictated by FinCEN Chapter X, requirements under Dodd-Frank, Reg E, Reg P and OFAC regulations, among other applicable laws.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As it ramps up, Alza\u2019s revenue model will be a mix between interchange fees, interest on deposits and a small fee on cross-border payments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Alza quietly raised <\/span>$6.6 million in a round led by New York-based Thrive Capital in late 2021. Brex co-founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras, BoxGroup, Rappi co-founder and president <\/span>Sebastian Mejia, Linear COO Cristina Cordova and Sarah Heck, former White House advisor to President Obama and head of entrepreneurship at Stripe, also are backers.<\/span><\/p>\n Besides Villaneuva, Alza\u2019s founding team includes Andrew Mahon<\/a>, director of engineering of Affirm and David Meadows<\/a>, founding engineer at Stripe, among others.<\/p>\n \u201cAlza is certainly welcoming of folks who have recently started a new life in the U.S., but our vision is much larger,\u201d Villanueva added. \u201cWe\u2019re creating the financial tools for a demographic that is on the rise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The majority of Alza\u2019s 10-person team came to the U.S. as immigrants \u2014 or their parents did \u2014 from countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and France.<\/span><\/p>\n Villanueva himself was born in Monterrey, Mexico and moved to the Rio Grande Valley when he was six.<\/span><\/p>\n Besides knowing firsthand the pain that immigrants face when seeking financial services, the team also realizes the massive business opportunity in serving its target demographic. <\/span>The economic output of Latinos in 2020 was $2.8 trillion, up from $2.1 trillion in 2015 and $1.7 trillion in 2010, according to a report by the Latino Donor Collaborative in partnership with Wells Fargo, as cited by <\/span>NBC News<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Bel\u00e9n Mella, who led Thrive\u2019s investment in Alza, said it\u2019s those statistics that in part caught her attention.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cU.S. Latinos are a massive and extremely entrepreneurial market, representing 20% of the US population and $2.8 trillion in annual economic output, the equivalent of a top ten country by GDP,\u201d she wrote via email. \u201cDespite this economic power, anyone who has lived in a predominantly Latino neighborhood can tell you that the segment continues to be underserved by financial services, overpaying for standard products and overrelying on services like money orders, check cashing, and pay-day loans. The Alza team is uniquely positioned to take on this challenge, combining both the lived experience to empathize with their customers and the professional experience at places like Stripe, Affirm, Square and Ramp to build a world-class company in this space.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She said she was also impressed by the company\u2019s \u201cengineering-led approach to infrastructure.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Countries Alza serves so far include Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain and Uruguay.<\/span><\/p>\n Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up for The Interchange <\/span><\/i>here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\u2018A demographic on the rise\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u2018Massive and extremely entrepreneurial market\u2019<\/h2>\n