“Can a Colombian merchant acquirer become the financial OS — payments, account, credit, investments — for every SMB in LatAm?”
Founded 2019 as a Colombian merchant acquirer selling cheap card-acceptance dataphones to micro and SMB merchants. Expanded from pure payment acceptance into an SMB financial OS — Bold Capital launched embedded credit (2023), and Bold CF was structured as a regulated Compañía de Financiamiento (Colombian finance company) to offer a deposit account, credit card, QR payments and investments. Today Bold operates two legal entities: Bold Pagos (Bold.Co S.A.S., the acquirer/payments business) and Bold CF (the regulated lender/account-provider).
Bold discloses Bold CF Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. (in-house) as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Bold does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Bold CF Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. (in-house).
Bold processes payments through Bold Pagos (self-operated acquirer), Datáfonos (self-operated POS terminals), Botón de Pagos (self-operated), Link de Pago (self-operated), API Pagos en Línea (self-operated), QR Bold / Bre-B (self-operated) and PSE (local Colombian debit rail).
Bold's cards are issued through Bold CF Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. (in-house).
Bold's lending and capital products are provided by Bold Capital S.A.S. (in-house).
Bold integrates with API Integrations (POS / ERP connectors via Bold's API) and Applink (datáfono ↔ POS/mobile app).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 5 layers in Bold's stack: Payments / PSP (Bold Pagos (self-operated acquirer), Datáfonos (self-operated POS terminals), Botón de Pagos (self-operated), Link de Pago (self-operated) and 3 others); Banking / BaaS (Bold CF Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. (in-house)); Card issuing (Bold CF Compañía de Financiamiento S.A. (in-house)); Lending (Bold Capital S.A.S. (in-house), Bold Capital — cupo de crédito (merchant credit line) and Créditos Bold CF); Accounting (API Integrations (POS / ERP connectors via Bold's API) and Applink (datáfono ↔ POS/mobile app)).
Bold was founded by José Vélez and is founded in 2019, headquartered in Bogotá, Colombia.
Bold has raised $130M+ in total (latest round: Series C, 2024).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Bold and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.