As Latin America cements its position as one of the most complex yet vital payments ecosystems in the world, operators across Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Mexico are under mounting pressure to deliver speed, trust and compliance at scale. Few executives understand this landscape – but our Edward Chandler, CEO of OKTO, is one of the few. Speaking with iGB, Ed shares how OKTO is building differently, what that means for merchants today, and where the next wave of disruption in LatAm will come from.

LatAm is a fast-evolving payments ecosystem. What’s your vision for how merchants in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Mexico will compete — and win — in the next 5 years?

 Ed: LatAm is no longer a frontier. It’s the proving ground for the next era of payments. In iGaming especially, operators face the toughest conditions anywhere: fragmented regulations, diverse payment preferences, and players who demand speed, trust, and transparency.

The winners over the next five years will be those who can scale with precision delivering localized methods, frictionless onboarding, and instant payouts while staying ahead of regulatory shifts.

At OKTO, we are commited to our vision is to be the most trusted payment partner for these operators. That means building differently: AI-native at every layer, precision-engineered infrastructure that turns complexity into competitive advantage, and an obsession with merchant outcomes. When we do the structural, unglamorous work others ignore from reconciliation to liquidity orchestration we give merchants the freedom to grow faster, safer, and smarter.

 In a market crowded with payment players, what is the “Precision Mode” advantage that sets OKTO apart in LatAm?

Ed: Precision Mode is about excelling at the details most players in this industry overlook. We build for the toughest environments, where uptime, compliance, and settlement speed are not nice-to-haves, they’re the difference between winning and losing.

In LatAm iGaming, that translates into real-time settlement, AI-driven risk and reconciliation, and infrastructure optimized for both high volumes and regulatory scrutiny. We deliberately don’t offer every possible method and we don’t try to be everything to everyone; instead, we obsess over the ones that deliver the highest conversion and performance in each market for our merchants. That’s why our strength comes from being best at the essentials, with pay-ins and payouts that are instant, seamless, and compliant; banking and treasury tools that simplify liquidity, FX, and reconciliation for even the most complex operators; and settlement that’s real-time and reliable, whether domestic or cross-border. These are the foundations of Precision Mode and they’re what give our partners the edge to scale faster, safer, and smarter across the region.

OKTO is an AI-native company in payments. How does this translate into practical advantages for merchants in high-complexity, high-risk verticals like iGaming?

Ed: Being AI-native isn’t a marketing slogan but our operating model. Over the past months, we’ve been embedding AI into every layer of our platform, and today our teams in every corner of the world are increasingly AI-augmented by default, not exception.

For iGaming in LatAm, this shift will create tangible benefits: predictive fraud detection that stops issues before they reach players, automated merchant onboarding that cuts timelines from weeks to days, and real-time parsing of regulatory updates so operators can adapt instantly. In fact, we’ve seen onboarding times shrink by up to 60% and go-to-market speed increase by nearly half compared to traditional processes.

Beyond that, AI is driving smarter transaction routing, more efficient treasury management, and even merchant support that anticipates needs rather than reacts to them. This isn’t about adding shiny features. It’s about building resilience into the core of the system. AI is making us faster, smarter, and relentlessly merchant-focused, so our partners can compete with confidence in the most demanding markets.

 In LatAm, onboarding delays and inefficiencies can cost merchants millions. How does OKTO deliver faster onboarding, smarter operations, and resilient performance?

Ed: We’ve built onboarding to be compliance-ready from day one: fully automated KYC/KYB, local regulatory checks, and seamless integration with merchant systems. This means faster go-live without ever compromising trust.

Operationally, we apply the same precision: 24/7 monitoring, intelligent failover systems, and infrastructure designed for high-volume, low-latency performance. When the biggest sporting events hit, our merchants know payments won’t fail. Because in iGaming, a delay isn’t just a glitch — it’s a lost player.

Building differently means we don’t just remove friction; we prevent it before it happens

Regulatory volatility in LatAm can make scaling a nightmare. How does OKTO’s compliance-by-design approach help merchants expand across borders with confidence? 

Ed: Scaling in LatAm is like playing regulatory chess on multiple boards at once. Where most PSPs see volatility as a burden, we see it as a core competency and one of our biggest competitive advantages. Rather than chasing after new rules, we build compliance into the architecture from day one.

Our compliance-by-design philosophy ensures every transaction, payout, and reporting process meets and often exceeds local standards. So, when a market like Brazil shifts its payment framework, our merchants can pivot in hours, not months.

That agility isn’t accidental but structural. By embracing regulatory change instead of resisting it, we turn complexity into confidence, giving our partners more time to focus on growth, and less time fighting red tape.

How do you ensure that the merchant voice drives your innovation agenda, not just your product roadmap? 

Ed: At OKTO, innovation starts not only with listening but listening with intent. Every merchant-facing team captures operator feedback, which is then funneled into our Merchant Excellence Pods. These pods bring together engineers, product managers, compliance specialists, and merchant leads to turn insights into solutions.

This isn’t a roadmap built in isolation it’s merchant KPIs translated into engineering priorities. It ensures every feature and every process delivers measurable merchant outcomes.

What impact have OKTO’s solutions had for operators in LatAm so far? 

Ed: The first half of the year wasn’t just about innovation, it was about empowering our merchant partners with solutions that move faster, smarter, and further than ever before. In H1 alone, the OKTO platform processed over €6 billion across LatAm, setting new benchmarks for speed, reliability, and performance.

Our smart routing engine now allows merchants to optimize by country, bank, method, or even percentage, balancing cost efficiency with conversion. Across Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, and Chile, we launched 10 key local payment methods, supported by real-time global monitoring to ensure uninterrupted operations.

Beyond payments, we expanded into funds and treasury management, domestic and cross-border settlement, and FX conversion. All designed to give merchants precision control and compliance at scale.

And the impact is clear: in a business where every basis point of improvement in acceptance rates can translate into millions in additional revenue, our ability to optimize performance isn’t a marginal gain but a competitive breakthrough. For example, working closely with one of our iGaming partners in Brazil in this direction, fully focused in improving acceptance rates we achieved by nearly three percentage points within the first two quarters of migrating to OKTO, a shift that directly translated into millions in incremental deposits and higher player retention.

These aren’t isolated wins. They’re proof that our merchant-obsessed engineering and precision execution consistently deliver outcomes that move the needle: higher conversion, resilient uptime, and lower costs.

If you had to predict one big disruption in LatAm eCommerce over the next three years, what would it be — and how is OKTO preparing for it? 

Ed: The next disruption will be the convergence of instant payments, embedded financial services, and AI-driven personalization. Players will expect payments to be instant, context-aware, and frictionless.

We’ve already seen this transformation in Brazil, where PIX has redefined the market almost overnight, setting new standards for speed and trust while reducing reliance on cards. And the pattern is repeating across the whole LatAm and beyond. In Mexico, SPEI is rapidly becoming the preferred rail for real-time payments. In Argentina, CVU has unlocked frtioctionless instant deposits and withdrawals for millions of players. Chile and Peru are following a similar path with their own local real-time schemes. The direction is clear: across LatAm, card acceptance will steadily fall, and local payment methods will become the backbone of digital commerce.

This is exactly why OKTO is building differently. Our infrastructure is instant-ready, API-first, and adaptable to new local rails, but more importantly, we’re doubling down on what truly drives conversion in this region: local payment methods that deliver speed, trust, and compliance at scale.

The operators who embrace this shift away from legacy card rails and toward the real-time, LPM-driven future will own the next era of player loyalty in LatAm. And our job is to make sure they have the tools, resilience, and speed to get there first.