Invisible Giant
20 million users. Launched 2017.
In the Global South, the wallet becomes the language of money before the bank ever arrives.
In Peru, paying someone has its own verb now: yapea.
Yape turned a phone number and a QR code into the way the country moves money - around 20 million users, close to three in four working-age Peruvians, and more than a million micro-entrepreneurs taking payment. Backed by Peru's largest bank, it reached people the branch never courted.
The decision that mattered: make it free, instant, and simple enough to become a verb.
In the Global South, the wallet becomes the language of money before the bank arrives.
Source: Yape / Banco de Credito del Peru, 2025.