Por Stiven Cartagena
May 21, 2026
Mexico is one of the Latin American countries that has invested the most in developing financial solutions. Neobanks, fintechs, sofomes, and traditional banks are all competing for customers. However, credit continues to go to the same people as always. The problem isn’t the supply of credit, but the lack of reliable income data needed to lend to more people.
That is the gap Palenca, an income verification startup for financial institutions, aims to close. A few days ago, the startup closed a US$4 million funding round led by Experian, with backing from Foundation Capital, Gilgamesh Ventures, and Dhow Ventures.
“We are one of the countries lagging the most in financial inclusion. Without information to base lending on, the best available variable is income. Without that, the system simply cannot expand into new segments,” explains José Carlos Aguilar, CEO and co-founder of Palenca.
The Mexican financial system has added players, but it hasn’t solved its structural problem. Without verifiable data on users’ creditworthiness, the result is a market that grows in size, with more apps, more cards, and more promotions, but fails to reach the people who truly need credit to start a business, consolidate debt, or cover an unexpected expense.
“Credit expansion depends less on launching new products and more on building new layers of information. As long as that gap persists, we will continue to move forward at a marginal pace,” adds Aguilar.
One of the sector’s biggest paradoxes is that there is a large group of people who generate income—sometimes through informal work, sometimes through multiple jobs or their own businesses—but lack financial visibility. To the system, they are invisible. Not because they don’t have money, but because there is no reliable way to measure it.
Palenca’s approach is a model focused on validating real income—even from non-traditional sources—to integrate it into credit and risk decisions. With the capital raised, the company will develop new data products, expand the validation of different income sources, and strengthen its predictive models with artificial intelligence.
In 2025, Palenca processed nearly 5 million income verifications. This year, it projects reaching 20 million. That leap means more people could access credit for the first time, and those already in the system could improve their terms.
“This opens up a huge opportunity for banks to grant credit to those who currently don’t have it and to improve the terms for those already in the system,” concludes Aguilar.
