By Valentine Hilaire

MEXICO CITY (Reuters] – Flink, a Mexican investor platform, will be operating in Colombia from June to July in its Latin America expansion strategy. Sergio Jimenez was the Chief Executive of Flink.

Jimenez explained that subscribers can invest in fractions shares of U.S. companies. The platform will also include Mexican debt instruments such as state bonds. This is to diversify the investor portfolio.

Flink is for first-time investors. You can start with as little as 30 pesos ($1.46).

Company data shows that around 300,000.00 Mexicans held investment accounts for 2019. That’s less than 1%.

Flink boasts 1.6 Million subscribers, and plans to increase that figure to 4,000,000 by 2022.

The average newcomer ticket is $1 to $2. But it can reach $32 by the end of the fourth month. Jimenez said that people feel more confident when they know the market.

To give its clients the opportunity to buy fractional shares, Jimenez decided to create the platform together with U.S. listed companies. Jimenez indicated that customers are attracted to foreign companies.

Flink data shows that Tesla Inc (NASDAQ) Inc., Apple Inc. (NASDAQ) and Amazon.com Inc. are the three largest companies in which investors have made the highest investments in the 12 months.

Flink was originally created to offer digital banking solutions. But, Jimenez stated that Flink has since decided to focus more on providing people with access to markets.

Flink works with regulatory bodies to modernize Mexico’s brokerage system. Jimenez stated that although Mexico does not permit digital brokerage onboarding, it is one of the biggest obstacles to market accessibility.

He said that investors must visit a brokerage in person to open investment accounts.

Flink also wants to expand to countries such as Peru, Chile, and Argentina. Jimenez said that Flink aims to work around regulatory restrictions to provide more investment opportunities to its users.

($1 = 20.5550 Mexican pesos