Brazil’s banks try to outflank challengers by investing in a $15 million round for Quanto

Trying to outflank competition from neo banks and other potential challengers, two of Brazil's largest financial services institutions, Bradesco and Itau Unibanco, have invested in Quanto, a company developing technology to let retailers and other businesses access financial information and services.

Joining Brazil's two largest banks are Kaszek Ventures, one of Latin America's largest venture capital firms, and Coatue, the multi-billion dollar hedge fund.

Bradesco joined the round through its InovaBra Ventures investment fund while Itau invested directly and had its participation approved by Brazil's Central Bank, according to a statement.

Open banking changes the way we understand and consume financial services, but it's quite exciting to see the Brazilian market embracing this new moment in such a positive way," said Richard Taveira, Quanto's chief executive, in a statement. Brazil has the potential to lead the use of open banking worldwide, and this round is a testament to that."

Brazil's Central Bank is deeply invested in the prospect of opening up banking regulation to allow information and data sharing between payment processors and technology providers, retailers, and other service providers in the financial services value chain.

Quanto, which provides standardized bank data application programming interfaces that allow institutions to slash the time it takes to ccess bank account data.

The Quanto technology could enable financial product distribution through the same API platform as business to business services, the company said. Quanto claims that its services will make it easier for customers to access low-interest credit lines with a single sign-on model and to receive competitive interest rates by sharing banking data with multiple lenders in a single flow.

Quanto provides the rail for banks and fintechs to compete, and consumers are the ones who win", said Taveira.