Startups > Pismo

Pismo

Pismo provides cloud-native banking and payments infrastructure for financial institutions.

Series B $118M total Founded 2016 Brazil

Pismo is a cloud-native core banking and payments platform that unifies real-time payments, card issuance, digital wallets, and banking services through a microservices architecture. It serves banks, fintechs, and retailers across Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia with a single SaaS platform rather than fragmented legacy systems. The platform processes over 4 billion API calls monthly and hosts 25+ million accounts handling $3B+ in monthly transactions. NOTE: Pismo was acquired by Visa in January 2024 for $1 billion and now operates as a Visa subsidiary.

Problem solved

Financial institutions are burdened with fragmented, outdated legacy systems that cannot support real-time payments, modern card issuance, and scalable digital banking without significant technical debt and operational complexity.

Target customer

Large financial institutions, investment banks, digital banks, fintechs, and retailers in Latin America and emerging markets seeking unified core banking and payments capabilities.

Website LinkedIn Crunchbase

Founders

Ricardo Josua

Co-Founder & CEO

Previously founded Conductor (now Dock), LatAm's first payments & banking-as-a-service platform, with 25+ years in financial services technology.

Daniela Binatti

Co-Founder & CTO

Infrastructure and technology director at Conductor with 25+ years in IT and financial services; became technology director by age 26.

Marcelo Parise

Co-Founder & VP Engineering

Leads engineering team with 25+ years in technology companies; responsible for cloud-native platform architecture.

Juliana Binatti Motta

Co-Founder & CPO

Co-founder bringing product strategy expertise to the platform.

Funding history

Series A $10M December 2016 Led by Redpoint Ventures · Unknown

Series B $108M October 19, 2021 Led by SoftBank Latin America Fund · Amazon, Accel, B3, Falabella Ventures, PruVen, Headline, Redpoint Ventures

Acquisition $1B January 16, 2024 Led by Visa · N/A

Total raised: $118M

Industries

Banking Cloud Computing PaaS Payments Software

Pricing

Not publicly available. Enterprise/custom pricing only. Pismo charges transaction fees per active account with volume-based discounts; the more clients a customer has, the less they pay per account.

Notable customers

Banco Itaú, BTG Pactual, B3, Cora, N26, Falabella, and unnamed customers across Europe, North America, and Asia

Integrations

Visa, Mastercard, private label card networks; API-first architecture enables broad integration capabilities

Website

pismo.io/

Competitors

Zeta

Broader payments infrastructure platform with different geographic focus and customer base.

Tink

European-focused fintech infrastructure with emphasis on open banking and financial data connectivity.

TrueLayer

Open banking platform focused on payment initiation and account data access rather than full core banking.

Pomelo

Competing core banking platform in similar geographic markets with different technical architecture.

Thought Machine

Cloud-native core banking platform with global presence but different market positioning and customer segments.

Why this matters: Pismo represents the emergence of world-class fintech infrastructure from Latin America, solving a real gap in banking modernization. Its $1B acquisition by Visa validates the market and demonstrates that regional payments platforms can achieve billion-dollar outcomes—a blueprint for other LatAm-founded infrastructure companies.

Best for: Large Latin American financial institutions, banks, and fintechs that need modern, scalable cloud-native infrastructure to replace legacy systems and support real-time payments, card issuance, and digital banking at scale.

Use cases

Card Issuance at Scale

Banks and fintechs use Pismo to issue plastic cards, virtual cards, and one-time merchant-specific cards without building custom infrastructure. Itaú and other major banks leverage this to rapidly deploy new card products.

Digital Banking for Retailers

Retail chains like Falabella use Pismo's complete banking functionality to offer customer savings accounts, current accounts, deposits, and overdrafts with spending controls, turning retail relationships into financial services revenue.

Real-Time Payment Processing

The platform handles transaction processing and seller management for both e-commerce and in-store purchases across multiple countries and currencies, enabling merchants to acquire and settle payments globally without operational complexity.

API-First Integration

The microservices architecture and API-first design allow fintechs like Cora and N26 to integrate quickly with minimal engineering overhead, reducing time-to-market for new financial products by months.

Alternatives

Galileo US-based platform acquired by SoFi; Pismo is positioned as Latin America's equivalent but serves global markets post-Visa acquisition.

Thought Machine Open-source core banking platform with different pricing model and technical philosophy; stronger in Europe and Africa.

Finxact US-focused core banking platform with different market positioning; less emphasis on payments infrastructure integration.

FAQ

What does Pismo do? +

Pismo is a cloud-native core banking and payments platform that provides unified real-time payments, card issuance (plastic, virtual, one-time), digital banking services, and transaction processing. Banks, fintechs, and retailers use it to replace fragmented legacy systems. The platform processes 4+ billion API calls monthly and hosts 25+ million accounts handling $3B+ in monthly transactions.

How much does Pismo cost? +

Pismo does not publish pricing; all arrangements are custom enterprise deals. The model is transaction-based SaaS: Pismo charges per active account with volume discounts, so larger customer bases reduce per-account costs. Contact Pismo directly for pricing.

What is Pismo's current status? +

Visa acquired Pismo in January 2024 for $1 billion. Pismo now operates as a Visa subsidiary with operational autonomy and its original management team in place.

Who uses Pismo? +

Major Latin American banks (Itaú, BTG Pactual), exchanges (B3), digital banks (Cora, N26), and retailers (Falabella). Customers also span Europe, North America, and Asia. Target customers are large financial institutions and fintechs needing modern core banking and payments infrastructure.

How does Pismo compare to competitors? +

Pismo is positioned as Latin America's answer to Galileo with strong regional roots and customer relationships. Compared to Zeta, Tink, and TrueLayer: Pismo offers fuller core banking capabilities beyond payments; compared to Thought Machine, it emphasizes payments and card issuance integration; versus Pomelo, it has larger enterprise scale and higher transaction volume proven by its $1B acquisition.

What makes Pismo different? +

Cloud-native microservices architecture with API-first design enables fast integration. Proven scale: 4B+ monthly API calls, 25M+ accounts, $3B+ monthly transactions. Strong regional expertise in Latin America with tier-1 customer relationships. Now backed by Visa's resources and distribution.