(Bloomberg) -- MercadoLibre Inc., the Latin America e-commerce and payments juggernaut, named Andre Chaves as the new head of its fintech business in Brazil as it looks to further expand its offering of financial products in its largest market.

Chaves, 41, previously worked as a senior vice president of strategy, corporate development and investor relations at MercadoLibre, where he’s been since 2020. Before that, he spent more than a decade at Bain & Co. as a consultant and then a partner in their Sao Paulo office. Chaves replaces Tulio Oliveira who becomes chief financial officer for MercadoLibre Brazil. He will report into Osvaldo Gimenez, who is president of MercadoLibre’s fintech unit.

Brazil accounted for more than half of MercadoLibre’s $14.5 billion revenue in 2023. Its payments and financials solutions unit Mercado Pago accounted for 43% of the company’s revenue last year, up from 36% in 2020, as more e-commerce clients use the platform to pay for products, take out loans and contract insurance.

“It’s been a business that’s been growing fantastically well, so there was no internal or external pressure for a change,” Chaves said in an interview in Sao Paulo. “It was more a chance to refresh with a different perspective, a different style, taking the chance to reorganize some chairs.”

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MercadoLibre has gained 30% in the past year to $1,587 per share, despite a drop last week following fourth quarter provisions that surprised investors. Its market value of $80 billion trails only Brazil state-owned oil behemoth Petroleo Brasileiro SA as the most valuable company in Latin America.

Mercado Pago was originally created as a way to process payments internally and has evolved into a giant that offers merchants card readers and QR codes to conduct transactions. It has also launched credit cards and savings accounts among other offerings. Mercado Pago can leverage the data collected from consumers at the e-commerce business to offer credit. The portfolio across the region stands at nearly $4 billion, Chaves said, with a lot of room to grow.

This year, Mercado Pago in Brazil will focus on securing more customers among small businesses and moving beyond “nano merchants” like street vendors, he said. The firm can also use its vast logistics network to help business owners transport goods. 

“We’re looking into smaller merchants. A restaurant with five to 10 employees or a small apparel shop, this kind of stuff. So this is what we need to build,” Chaves said. “We already have the device, we don’t have the full set of services for them. And this is one of the priorities to create the whole value proposition for small sellers.”

Mercado Pago is paying competitive rates to lure more deposits from clients, has a top-performing fixed-income fund and the credit card business is growing “triple digits,” Chaves said, adding that funding hasn’t been a challenge.

“Now we have the full product stack, so you could have your whole day-to-day banking life with us,” but “our awareness is not where it could be,” he said. “That was the focus in the last two years, build the products. Now it’s to push the products.”

MercadoLibre expects to release its investment plan in the coming weeks and beyond outlays for the credit card business, there will be spending on a loyalty plan, Chaves said.

The possibility of spinning off Mercado Pago in an initial public offering is “extremely less likely than it was in the past, which wasn’t likely then,” Chaves said. “We see huge value on being part of an ecosystem.”

--With assistance from Rachel Gamarski, Carolina Millan and Crayton Harrison.

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