Ant International’s R2 Enters Brazil, Bringing Embedded Credit Technology to Serve SMBs and Gig Workers

SÃO PAULO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--R2 today announced its expansion into Brazil, marking the company's entry into Latin America's largest economy. With the support of Ant International, a leading global digital payment, digitisation and FinAI solutions provider, R2 will partner with digital platforms across Brazil to embed working capital solutions directly into the products their merchants and gig workers already use.

For digital platforms, marketplaces, payment providers, ecommerce companies, and others serving SMBs and gig workers, R2 provides a proven embedded credit technology solution that enables them to offer financing to their users without building credit operations themselves, and without taking on credit risk. The result is a new revenue stream and a stronger value proposition for their merchant base. For the businesses and workers those platforms serve, it means access to working capital based on how they actually perform, not on documentation that most of them don't have.

"Brazil is a defining milestone in R2's growth. The country combines one of the world's most advanced digital financial ecosystems with enormous demand for embedded finance. Together with Ant International, we share a deep commitment to expanding financial inclusion across Latin America, connecting digital platforms with the tools they need to bring working capital to the millions of businesses and individuals that drive the region's economy," said Roger Larach, Co-founder and CEO of R2.

Built for Regional Scale

R2 enters Brazil with technology and operational systems refined across four markets, industries, and economic cycles.

As of Q2 2026, eligible businesses receive funding in an average of 0.7 hours, up to 70% of eligible applicants are pre-approved, and the company maintains a cross-market NPS of 89. Origination volume grew 2.5x year-over-year as of July 2026. The platform analyzes more than 10.3 billion transactions every month, providing visibility into over 7.3 million merchants across the region, the data depth that powers R2's transaction-based underwriting and enables personalized credit offers tailored to each business's actual performance.

Why Brazil

Brazil's digital economy creates the conditions where R2's model performs best.

The widespread adoption of Pix has brought an enormous share of SMB and gig worker activity onto digital rails, generating the real-time transactional data that R2's underwriting runs on. This allows R2 to assess creditworthiness based on what a business is actually doing, its transaction volume, payment patterns, and revenue consistency rather than relying on traditional documentation. The more digital the payment ecosystem, the more accurate and personalized the credit offers R2 can deliver.

At the same time, millions of businesses and independent workers in Brazil generate consistent digital revenues but continue to face limited access to traditional financing. R2 addresses this directly, embedding working capital into the platforms they already use so financing flows naturally as part of their existing operational experience.

Building on a Strategic Partnership

R2's expansion into Brazil is supported by Ant International, whose commitment to invest in R2's growth provides the capital capacity to deploy embedded credit solutions at scale across the country. Ant International brings additional depth and funding to R2's embedded operations, enabling it to deliver tailored credit solutions on a massive scale for the businesses and workers it serves.

With an average of over 20 million daily transactions, Ant International helps over 150 million merchants reach more than 2 billion user accounts globally, offering solutions ranging from payment and account services to embedded credit, treasury management, and AI-powered financial innovations. In Brazil, the company provides embedded financing and credit tech solutions through partnerships with digital e-commerce platform and local fintechs.

Looking Ahead

Brazil marks the beginning of R2's next phase of geographic expansion. R2 will continue partnering with marketplaces, logistics companies, payment providers, and SaaS platforms to embed financing directly into their ecosystems helping more SMBs and independent workers access the working capital they need to grow, while creating new revenue opportunities for the platforms that serve them.

About R2

Founded in 2020, R2 has operations in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil, and enables payment processors, POS systems, e-commerce solutions, and marketplaces to offer financing to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Latin America. Through its APIs, R2 provides an end-to-end lending experience to technology platforms, allowing them to offer capital to their users without assuming any risk. To learn more, visit https://r2.co/.

About Ant International

Ant International is a leading global digital payment, digitisation and FinAI solutions provider. Through collaboration across the private and public sectors, our unified techfin platform supports financial institutions and merchants of all sizes to achieve inclusive growth through a comprehensive range of cutting-edge digital payment and financial services solutions. To learn more, please visit https://www.ant-intl.com/.