Tilt, a San Francisco fintech that lends to consumers with thin or damaged credit histories, said on July 1, 2026 that it had completed its acquisition of Blipay, a São Paulo-based company that offers salary advances.
Financial terms were not disclosed. Tilt did not say what it paid, how the deal was structured or how many Blipay employees joined.
The purchase gives Tilt an immediate presence in Brazil, which it called Latin America's largest consumer credit market. Brazil becomes Tilt's fourth market outside the United States, after Mexico, the Philippines and India. Blipay co-founder and CEO Felipe Ziliotti stays on to run the business inside Tilt, according to the Brazilian fintech outlet Let's Money.
What Blipay built
Blipay was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in São Paulo. It gives workers advances on their salaries and other short-term liquidity products, using open banking data to decide who qualifies and Pix, Brazil's instant payment system, to send the money.
The announcement said Blipay has more than 6 million registered users, although the company description at the end of the same release put the figure at over four million. BMP Money Plus Sociedade de Crédito Direto S.A. and Money Plus Sociedade de Crédito ao Microempreendedor act as Blipay's banking partners and provide the credit and liquidity products offered on the platform.
"We built Blipay for hardworking Brazilians who were invisible to conventional credit models, despite doing everything right," Ziliotti said. He said the company's goal was to be the leading consumer lender in Brazil and that Tilt gave it the infrastructure and resources to get there faster.
“We built Blipay for hardworking Brazilians who were invisible to conventional credit models, despite doing everything right.”
Why Tilt is buying
Tilt started life in 2016 as Empower Finance, led by Warren Hogarth, Let's Money reported. Instead of relying only on credit scores, it uses real-time cash flow and other alternative data to judge whether borrowers can repay. Its products include credit cards, lines of credit and interest-free cash advances, along with savings and budgeting tools.
The company said it has been profitable since 2022, the year it began expanding outside the US, and that it has repeated the same playbook in each new country. It entered the Philippines and India through acquisitions of the lenders Cashalo and NIRA, according to Let's Money.
"The underwriting advantage we've built isn't market-specific: it's a moat that compounds every time we enter a new geography," said Hogarth, Tilt's co-founder and CEO. He said Tilt would bring the infrastructure and lessons from Mexico, the Philippines and India to Brazil.
Tilt says its approach gives access to liquidity to three in four consumers. In the US its products are offered through bank partners: the Tilt line of credit is provided by FinWise Bank, Tilt credit cards are issued by WebBank, and banking services are provided by nbkc bank.
Brazil's credit market
Tilt pointed to two features of the Brazilian market. Pix, the instant payment rail Blipay uses to pay out advances, is used by about 90% of the population. And roughly 100 million Brazilians are underserved by traditional banks, according to the company.
Blipay's model of open banking data and Pix payouts closely matches the approach Tilt uses elsewhere, which Tilt said made it a natural fit. Let's Money reported that Tilt is entering Brazil ready to compete with incumbents such as Nubank, and noted that salary advances sit close to Brazil's private payroll-deducted lending market, which it said has passed R$100 billion (about $18 billion) in outstanding loans.
What comes next
Tilt said the acquisition significantly increases its global customer base and positions it to speed up its international expansion. It now operates in the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, India and Brazil.
In its forward-looking statements, Tilt listed risks to the deal's benefits, including the integration of Blipay's operations, competition in Brazil's consumer credit market, and macroeconomic and foreign exchange conditions.
LatamList noted that Tilt began its international expansion in 2022 and has since grown to four markets outside the United States. Brazil is the first of those markets in South America.
