[Santa Monica, CA] October 20, 2026 — Tala, the AI-native credit infrastructure connecting global capital to the global majority, today announced an embedded credit partnership with El Dorado, the digital wallet used across Latin America to buy, send, convert, and manage USDT. The integration brings Tala-underwritten credit directly into the El Dorado wallet for customers, with credit disbursed and repaid in USDT. The offering will initially be available in Bolivia, followed by expansion to more countries in Latin America.
From offer to funds in seconds
For eligible El Dorado customers, the experience is immediate:
- Speed to funds: Customers see a pre-qualified offer inside the wallet, allowing them to move from offer to holding funds in seconds.
- Flexible terms: Customers choose their own terms, selecting an amount and duration on a sliding scale and a repayment date that fits their needs.
- Direct, onchain settlement: Loans are disbursed and repaid in USDT, moving directly between Tala and customer wallets on the Tempo blockchain.
Closing the credit gap in Latin America
In Latin America, holding value has become its own challenge. Persistent inflation and limited access to formal banking have pushed a growing number of people toward digital dollars as a store of value. In Bolivia, for example, more than 8 in 10 workers are informally employed — one of the highest rates of labor informality globally, according to the International Labour Organization — meaning most workers do not have the income documentation or credit history that banks require.
El Dorado offers a solution, letting customers buy, save, and spend in USDT. But saving in a stable currency solves only half the problem. When people need money before they have it — for an emergency, a slow month, an unexpected expense — credit has been largely out of reach. Consumer credit makes up just 10% of all loans in Bolivia’s banking system, according to the country’s financial regulator Autoridad de Supervisión del Sistema Financiero (ASFI), which helps explain why most people have no accessible, fast way to borrow.
“Bolivia has the largest informal economy in the world, according to the IMF. That doesn’t mean people aren’t creditworthy. It means banks can’t see them. Our users already save and move their money in digital dollars with El Dorado every day. With Tala, that activity finally turns into access to credit, right inside their wallet, in seconds,” said Guillermo Goncalvez, CEO of El Dorado.
How the embedded credit model works
Tala has spent more than a decade building infrastructure to address this gap, extending uncollateralized credit to people most lenders can’t or won’t underwrite, using proprietary AI to underwrite customers using behavioural and alternative signals. That infrastructure means wallets like El Dorado don’t have to build and operate a lending business of their own. Tala brings the capital and takes on the credit risk. El Dorado brings the distribution and the relationship it’s already built with its customers.
“Access shouldn’t be something people have to seek out. It should come through the platforms they already trust,” said Shivani Siroya, Founder and CEO of Tala. “That’s why we’re putting our credit engine inside El Dorado, so it’s there for customers when they need it. We’ve seen firsthand that credit builds trust and drives adoption of wallets and stablecoins, because it gives people more to do with their money and more purchasing power. For El Dorado, it’s a path to grow with its existing customers, reach new ones, and bring a new value proposition to new countries. Any platform ready to do the same now has a direct path to plug in to Tala’s lending stack.”
Learn more about El Dorado at https://eldorado.io/.
About Tala
Tala is the AI-native credit infrastructure that connects global capital to the global majority. We combine proprietary risk intelligence with an expanding network of capital and distribution partners to power credit access at scale. Backed by more than $500 million in funding, Tala has distributed more than $9 billion in capital to more than 14 million customers across Africa, Latin America, and Asia—building the definitive contextual dataset on thin-file borrowers in emerging markets.
About El Dorado
El Dorado is the digital wallet that makes digital dollars accessible across Latin America. Founded in 2021, El Dorado serves more than 1 million users in over 13 countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Paraguay, letting them buy, save, send, convert, and spend USDT. Backed by Paradigm, which led the company’s $9 million Series A, El Dorado is building the financial tools people in Latin America need to protect and grow their money.