dLocal: Interview with Pedro Arnt, CEO
dLocal’s CEO on building the payment rails for the Global South
In the interview from The Motley Fool, Pedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal, discusses the company’s strategic position as a payment infrastructure leader in the “Global South.” He provides deep insights into the cultural transition of leadership, the specific pain points dLocal solves for global tech giants, and the future of digital commerce across 43 emerging markets.
Why dLocal
Global Reach and Emerging Market Potential: Arnt was attracted to dLocal because of its unique position to capture growth across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, moving beyond the regional focus of his previous role at Mercado Libre.
Solving the Fragmentation: Global merchants like Amazon and Google face a massive hurdle in emerging markets because credit card penetration is low and local payment methods (e.g., PIX in Brazil, UPI in India) are highly fragmented.
Volatility as a Competitive Moat: Arnt argues that market volatility is a “feature, not a bug.” The more complex the regulatory and FX (foreign exchange) landscape, the more valuable dLocal’s abstraction layer becomes to its clients.
The Execution and Growth
Structured Leadership Transition: Arnt’s move from co-CEO to sole CEO was a pre-planned shadowing model designed to preserve the founder-led culture while integrating his experience in scaling.
The “One dLocal” API: dLocal uses a single API integration that allows a global merchant to access hundreds of local payment methods across 40+ countries without needing feet on the ground in every territory.
Bespoke Merchant Focus: A core superpower identified by Arnt is the company’s ability to build products backwards from the specific needs of the merchant and the local market particularities. I like the customer obsession here. This is exactly how Amazon grows by creating product specific to few customers, and they broaden to more customers.
Human Capital Investment: The company has scaled its engineering team from 200 to over 600 in just two years to accelerate product roadmaps and improve transaction conversion rates.
Performance and Shareholder Returns
Scalable Financial Model: dLocal is an asset-light business with significant operational leverage, allowing margins to expand even as the company focus on current investment cycles.
The Take-Rate Misconception: Arnt addresses investor concerns over declining take-rates, explaining that the company manages for gross profit dollars and EBITDA rather than a specific percentage of Total Payment Volume (TPV).
Dividends and Liquidity: The company recently shifted to returning 30% of free cash flow via a special dividend rather than buybacks to improve stock liquidity and provide a predictable return to shareholders.
Merchant Cohort Expansion: While top merchants currently use dLocal in an average of 11 markets, the company sees massive upside in expanding those same clients into the 43 markets currently available.
Commerce and Payment Evolution
Shorting Paper Currency: Arnt believes the future of money is entirely digital, driven by mobile wallets and eventually central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Crypto as Infrastructure: While he holds a more cautious view on consumer crypto payments today due to the effectiveness of current digital wallets, he views the blockchain as a superior long-term financial infrastructure.
Agentic Commerce: Arnt predicts the rise of “purchasing agents” (AI/bots) that will handle routine transactions like grocery ordering on behalf of humans, using commerce protocols supported by dLocal.