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Initially only exporters will be able to auction their invoices, but the company is working on incorporating new sectors, says Martinez.

Aztec Money's ambitious expansion plan for LAC (part II) By Ulric Rindebro - Friday, January 17, 2014 Francisco Martínez VP for Chile and Latin America Aztec Money Ireland-based online financial marketplace Aztec Money is embarked on an ambitious expansion plan in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Aztec Money offers companies with cash flow and funding needs access to its online platform and the auction of invoices to non-bank institutional investors based anywhere in the world, such as mutual funds, insurance companies and multilateral agencies. At the end of November 2013, the firm announced that it had expanded its international operations to Chile, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica. To find out more about the expansion plan for LAC, BNamericas spoke to Aztec Money's VP for Chile and Latin America, Francisco Martínez. This is the second of a two-part interview. BNamericas: Considering your strong growth plan for Latin America and the Caribbean, how much do you expect this region to represent of your business in the coming years? Martínez: LAC is now a strategic region for our future growth and the goal is for it to represent around 30% of our revenues as well as the number of transactions that we finance in three years. BNamericas: You said that Argentina and Brazil are currently the only countries in LAC where you cannot operate due to regulatory reasons. Do you expect this to change? Martínez: Yes, we're having conversations with the regulatory authorities in both countries and we hope to be able to operate in Argentina and Brazil at some point during this year. BNamericas: Tell me a little about your strategy for the Chilean market, which is a bit different from the rest of LAC. Martínez: Chile is like a European country within LAC, where there is a large and very advanced factoring industry. So in the Chilean market our main focus is not just SMEs that are exporting, but the large retailers - like Falabella and Cencosud - which have a big presence in several Latin American countries. Like we've done very successfully in Europe, we want to team up with these large retailers and supermarket chains and offer our services to their suppliers, both in Chile and in the other Latin American countries where they have operations. We believe that it is a win-win situation for a retailer and its suppliers if the latter can be paid on day one instead of after 90 days through the Aztec Money platform. BNamericas: In what way does Aztec Money market itself across LAC? Martínez: We use online marketing and advertising in specialized press. We're also present at trade fairs in for example Asia and Europe, where many Latin American exporters are also present. And another important channel is teaming up with local export associations and chambers of commerce in LAC. Being a partner of such local organisms opens up many doors for us in the region. BNamericas: Who are the institutional investors that you work with today, and could we see institutional investors from LAC joining your financing platform in the future? Martínez: We work with a pool of institutional investors, many of them hedge funds, from Asia, Europe and the US that have access to lots of liquidity. We're always open to welcoming new investors and it would be great to work with institutional investors from LAC who have valuable know-how of their local markets. About the company Aztec Money's parent company, Dublin-based Aztec Exchange, was founded in 2011 and has subsidiaries in the UK, the US and Singapore.