Cross-border payments advisory. Panama. US-LATAM corridor.
Novavista is an independent advisory practice working with banks, fintechs, and investors on the operational reality of moving money between the United States and Latin America. The firm focuses on corridor economics, disbursement infrastructure, bank-fintech partnerships, and operational due diligence. Engagements draw on direct operating experience inside the corridor, not analyst-level abstraction.
Panama is a dollarized economy at the center of LATAM's financial system, a regional banking hub with direct corridor exposure to the Caribbean, Central America, and the Andean region. It also has a growing fintech ecosystem and a notably thin senior advisory bench in cross-border payments.
Novavista operates from Panama after years building corridor expertise across San Francisco, São Paulo, and Santiago.
Margin analysis, FX strategy, pricing design, and COGS reduction for cross-border payment flows. Novavista validates or rebuilds the unit economics that determine whether a corridor scales. Includes stablecoin rails where they reduce settlement cost without adding regulatory complexity.
Two sides of the same market. For fintechs: bank and wallet integration strategy across LATAM, counterparty selection, deal structuring, and operational requirements. For banks: repositioning existing physical and digital networks as monetizable payout rails for the fintech ecosystem. Novavista knows the local rails that move money in LATAM: PIX in Brazil, Nequi and Bre-B in Colombia, mobile money across Central America, and the bank networks that traditional remitters underuse.
Regulatory mapping, payout partner selection, and integration sequencing for fintechs expanding into Latin America. End-to-end playbooks for launching new corridors in Central America, the Andean region, Mexico, and the Southern Cone.
Independent assessment of LATAM payments targets for investors and acquirers. Novavista validates claimed unit economics against actual market behavior and identifies regulatory and partner risk before close.
Novavista restructured the disbursement partner mix and renegotiated payout pricing for a US-based remittance company operating across three LATAM corridors.
Novavista led market entry for a payments company launching its first Central American corridor, from regulatory mapping to first live transaction. Handled disbursement partner selection, compliance requirements, and integration sequencing.
Novavista provided operational and market assessment for a private equity firm evaluating a LATAM remittance acquisition target. Identified undisclosed regulatory risk in two corridors and validated the target's claimed unit economics against actual market rates.
Client details anonymized. References available on request.
The US-to-LATAM corridor is no longer a race between Western Union, MoneyGram, and Remitly.
The interesting share moves are happening in corridor-specific challengers and the local infrastructure they ride on. Underwriting this market on a 2018 mental model is mispricing it.
The unlock for banks in cross-border is not launching new remittance products.
It is repositioning existing physical and digital infrastructure as monetizable payout rails for the fintech ecosystem, with proper API depth and pricing discipline. This is where most of the value sits, and where most banks are leaving it on the table.
Stablecoins matter in cross-border, but the value lands in settlement and treasury, not at the consumer layer.
Companies confusing the two are building solutions to problems users do not have.
Each is the seed of a longer piece. Links to full essays as they are published.
Novavista is led by Jaime Téllez, a cross-border payments operator with fourteen years of experience across US and Latin American markets.
He served as Senior Business Manager for LATAM corridors at Remitly, where he negotiated bank and wallet integrations driving 10-20% corridor growth, restructured corridor unit economics with ~25% reduction in payout COGS, and rerouted transaction flows to improve settlement speed by ~45%. Earlier roles include revenue and pricing leadership at LATAM Airlines and senior operating roles across travel and hospitality technology.
Jaime has lived and operated across the US-LATAM region: nearly a decade in San Francisco, three years each in São Paulo and Santiago, and now Panama City. He holds an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas and works across English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Whether you are launching a new corridor, monetizing an existing payout network, or evaluating a LATAM payments target, Novavista can help. Tell us what you are working on, and we will respond within 24 hours.
contact@novavistafintech.com