US-based disruptor KEO World is about to plug Jamaican banks and corporates into its AI- and blockchain-driven payments engine, part of a 12-country rollout scheduled over the next year.
Founded in 2020, the Miami outfit has already moved nearly US $1 billion through its flagship WorkKEO lending programme in Mexico and is generating revenue in eight markets across the Americas, the UK and the EU. Now the company is betting that Jamaica’s large financial institutions and blue-chip enterprises are hungry for faster, data-rich settlement tools that outperform wires, cheques and card-based work-arounds.
“We want to list in the next two to three years, and opening Jamaica is a logical step on that path,” CEO and co-founder Alfredo Fidanza told reporters, hinting at a dual IPO that could include a local exchange.
KEO’s model differs from small-ticket fintech lenders: no credit-card rails, no chargebacks, and no one-size-fits-all payment cycles. Each client receives a bespoke financing and settlement layer that plugs directly into its ERP stack, providing real-time reconciliation, cross-border coverage and instant pay-ins for suppliers. American Express has already adopted the system as its official non-card B2B platform, now live in Brazil and Canada.
The firm operates two lines of business:
- WorkKEO – KEO’s balance-sheet lending arm for inventory and invoice finance.
- KEO B2B-as-a-Service – a white-label licence that lets banks run the infrastructure under their own brands, capturing fee income while KEO handles the tech.
Roughly half of KEO’s revenue comes from merchant fees, with the rest split among lenders, buyers and sellers who benefit from shorter cash cycles and richer data. Management believes the success seen in Mexico, Brazil and Canada can be “copy-pasted” into Jamaica, giving local institutions a modern alternative to traditional corporate lending—and positioning KEO for a high-profile share listing when the time is right.
