LATAM fintech glossary

CBU (Clave Bancaria Uniforme) is the 22-digit code that identifies a bank account in Argentina. Argentina's equivalent to CLABE in Mexico or IBAN in Europe.

CCI (Código de Cuenta Interbancario) is the 20-digit number that identifies a bank account in Peru. Peru's equivalent to CLABE in Mexico.

CEP (Comprobante Electrónico de Pago) is the official receipt Banxico issues for every completed SPEI transfer in Mexico. It works as legal proof of payment.

CLABE (Clave Bancaria Estandarizada) is the 18-digit number that uniquely identifies a bank account in Mexico. It's used to receive SPEI transfers and automatic payments.

Plin is Peru's interbank digital wallet, an alliance between BBVA, Interbank, Scotiabank and BanBif. It competes directly with Yape for person-to-person payments.

PSE (Pagos Seguros en Línea) is the most-used interbank online payment system in Colombia. It lets shoppers pay e-commerce sites by debiting their bank account directly.

SPEI (Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios) is the real-time interbank transfer system operated by Banxico in Mexico. It moves money between accounts at different banks in under 5 seconds, 24 hours a day.

Yape is BCP's (Banco de Crédito del Perú) digital payments app, and the leader in mobile payments in Peru. It lets you send money by phone number and pay by QR code at merchants.

ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition) is an advanced variant of OCR that uses AI models to recognize handwriting and non-standard typefaces. Useful for documents with handwritten annotations.

OAuth Aggregation is the method of obtaining banking data via the OAuth protocol, where the user authorizes an external app to read their banking information without sharing credentials.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is the technology that converts images of text (scans, photos) into editable, searchable digital text. It's what makes it possible to process scanned bank statement PDFs.

Open Finance (Open Banking) is the regulatory framework that requires banks to expose customer data through standardized APIs, with the account holder's prior authorization. It lets fintechs access banking data in real time.

AFIP (Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos) was Argentina's tax authority until late 2024, when it was replaced by ARCA (Agencia de Recaudación y Control Aduanero). It administers VAT, income tax, Bienes Personales, monotributo and electronic invoicing.

CUIT (Clave Única de Identificación Tributaria) is Argentina's 11-digit tax ID, used by companies and independent workers. Employees have an equivalent code, the CUIL.

DIAN (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales) is Colombia's tax authority. It administers VAT, withholding tax, ICA and electronic invoicing.

GMF (Gravamen al Movimiento Financiero), known as 4×1000, is Colombia's 0.4% tax on every bank debit. The bank withholds it automatically.

ITF (Impuesto a las Transacciones Financieras) is Peru's 0.005% tax withheld on every bank transaction. It shows up broken out on every line item of the bank statement.

NIT (Número de Identificación Tributaria) is the ID DIAN assigns in Colombia to companies and to individuals with tax obligations. It includes a check digit at the end, separated by a dash.

RFC (Registro Federal de Contribuyentes) is the unique tax ID for every taxpayer in Mexico. 13 characters for individuals; 12 for companies.

RUC (Registro Único de Contribuyentes) is Peru's 11-digit tax ID, assigned by SUNAT to anyone carrying out economic activity. The first two digits indicate the type of taxpayer.

RUT (Rol Único Tributario) is Chile's tax ID for individuals and companies. It ends in a check digit that can be a number or the letter K.

SAT (Servicio de Administración Tributaria) is Mexico's tax authority, equivalent to the US IRS or Argentina's AFIP. It administers federal taxes (VAT, income tax), electronic invoicing (CFDI) and refunds.

SII (Servicio de Impuestos Internos) is Chile's tax authority. It administers VAT, income tax, electronic invoicing and the Registro de Compras y Ventas (RCV).

SUNAT (Superintendencia Nacional de Aduanas y de Administración Tributaria) is Peru's tax authority. It administers IGV, income tax, electronic invoicing and ITF.

Bank reconciliation is the process of matching a bank statement's transactions against the entries recorded in the books, identifying differences and outstanding items.

Outstanding items are transactions that appear on the bank statement but not in the accounting entries (or the other way around) at the time of reconciliation.

AML (Anti-Money Laundering, known as PLD in Spanish-speaking markets) refers to the regulations that require financial institutions to detect and report suspicious activity related to money laundering or terrorism financing.

Credit Scoring is the statistical/ML model that assigns a numeric score to an applicant's credit risk, generally between 300 and 850 (FICO-like models).

KYC (Know Your Customer) is the regulatory process of verifying a customer's identity before providing them financial services. Mandatory for banks and fintechs.

Underwriting is the process of evaluating an applicant's ability and credit risk before extending a loan. It combines analysis of income, expenses, credit history and financial behavior.

OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) is the open standard for describing REST APIs in YAML/JSON format. It enables generating interactive docs, SDKs and mock servers automatically.

A rate limit is the policy that caps how many requests a client can make to an API within a time window. It prevents abuse and protects service quality.

REST API is an architectural style for designing HTTP APIs based on resources, standard verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and JSON responses. The de facto standard for modern APIs.

A webhook is an HTTP notification mechanism where a service sends data to a URL the client configured whenever an event happens, so the client doesn't have to poll for it.

A native (digital) PDF contains selectable text and structured metadata generated digitally. A scanned PDF is just an image of a physical document, with no text directly extractable.