Peru’s banking and insurance regulator authorised the organisation of Lima del Sol EEDE, a new electronic-money issuer linked to Lemon Group, in July, giving the company a route towards operating more of its local payments infrastructure through a supervised entity. The approval is an organisational step rather than permission to begin operations, and a separate operating authorisation is still required before the new company can function.
The regulator said the proposed Peruvian entity is intended to provide electronic-money accounts, transfers, top-ups, withdrawals, bill payments, interoperable transactions and physical and virtual prepaid Visa cards. Lemon currently operates its Peruvian wallet through Lanin Pay and uses an external supervised issuer for electronic money at present.
The Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP said Lemon had more than five million users across Latin America when it announced the approval. Lemon’s own public website currently states more than four million validated users, alongside more than two million Visa cards issued and $9.3 billion processed during 2025. The differing figures appear to reflect separate reporting bases and dates, and neither establishes the 4.5 million figure sometimes cited in secondary descriptions of the platform.
Founded in 2019 by Marcelo Cavazzoli, Lemon has developed from a crypto wallet into a broader financial application combining local-currency accounts, cryptocurrency trading, international payments and investment products. Its services vary by market and operate through different regulated partners or group entities, meaning features available in Argentina, Peru and Colombia are not identical.
The company’s international Visa card remains central to the model. In Argentina, qualifying card purchases can generate Bitcoin cashback, while in Colombia the Visa Lemon Card returns 0.4 per cent of eligible spending in USDT, a stablecoin designed to track the US dollar. Lemon also launched the card in Peru, where the company said in July that more than 300,000 cards had been issued and more than one million users had been validated.
Lemon says its cards can be used internationally wherever Visa is accepted, subject to local terms, account balances and merchant requirements. Contactless payments are supported, but whether a PIN or additional verification is required depends on transaction limits, merchant settings, local rules and Visa security controls, so PIN-free use cannot be treated as universal.
Crypto services remain another pillar of the application. Lemon’s regional material says users can access more than 50 digital assets, while its crypto-focused platform describes deposits through 16 blockchain networks and exchanges involving more than 20 tokens. Product availability differs by country, and the company has continued adding assets and payment rails rather than maintaining a single fixed menu across the region.
Lemon Earn allows customers to place eligible digital assets into decentralised-finance protocols and receive variable crypto returns. The company explicitly warns that such returns are not guaranteed and that users can lose part of the assets committed. On its Argentina website, Lemon says users activating returns on digital dollars are placing USDT into DeFi protocols.
Transparency tools are designed to make the company’s crypto liabilities and reserves visible to customers. Lemon provides an in-app proof-of-reserves and proof-of-solvency system that allows users to inspect blockchain addresses holding custodied assets and review periodic liability checks. Its documentation says reserves, liabilities and solvency are audited weekly, while on-chain reserve data can be updated more frequently.
Regulatory structures differ across its principal markets. In Argentina, Bay Treasure Caramel is registered as a virtual-asset service provider with the National Securities Commission, while Digifin handles payment-account functions and is not a bank. In Peru, Lemon currently relies on a supervised electronic-money issuer while it develops its own licensed structure. In Colombia, Lemon operates as a digital correspondent of Coink, an entity supervised by the country’s financial regulator.
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