“Can a 35-year-old Brazilian consumer credit company leverage its universal bank charter to become the embedded financial infrastructure layer for fintechs and underbanked consumers in Brazil?”
Founded as Sorocred nearly 35 years ago as a regional consumer credit and credit card company serving Brazil's mass market and unbanked populations, the company pivoted in 2019 to build a digital open platform and in 2021 obtained a full universal bank charter from the Banco Central do Brasil, rebranding as Afinz. The company now operates as an embedded-finance platform offering its banking license and infrastructure (credit, lending, card issuing, Pix payments, insurance, receivables) to fintechs and startups as a BaaS partner, while also serving consumers directly. Card processing is outsourced to FIS.