Market roundup: Digital banking given a reality check

🔔 The dashboard: Brazil’s benchmark stock index Ibovespa gained 2.46 percent this week. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Real lost 1.59 percent against the U.S. Dollar this week.

• Biggest gains: Locaweb (tech), +17.83 percent.
• Biggest drops: Cogna (education), -8.26 percent.

Fintechs continue bleeding value despite digital finance boom

The number of new digital bank accounts in 2021 topped those opened in bricks-and-mortar banks for the first time ever, according to a survey by Febraban, a federation of banks. Roughly 9.9 million accounts were created through traditional channels, versus 10.8 million digital accounts – a 66-percent increase from 2020.

• The survey also shows that smartphones are responsible for more than half of all banking transactions carried out in the country, heavily enabled by instant...