“Can a Brazilian card acquirer become the dominant operating-system bank for the country's SMBs?”
Stone began in 2012 as a card-acquirer challenger to Cielo and Rede in Brazil, winning SMBs with better service and faster settlement. After its 2018 NASDAQ IPO it expanded vertically into banking (Conta PJ), credit (Stone Sociedade de Crédito S.A.), and software (Linx acquisition 2020). The current positioning — 'O Banco de Quem Empreende' — frames Stone as a full SMB neobank with acquiring, account, card, BNDES-linked credit, and embedded-finance APIs (Banking Gateway, OpenBank, Pagar.me) for partners.