The founder of Mercado Libre, Marcos Galn, jumped at the crossroads of false news published by the Clarín newspaper, claiming that the information released about the company's credit portfolio is incorrect.
The controversy originated from a note entitled “Wall Street is already warning: Mercado Pago's credit portfolio stopped growing”, which analyzed the evolution of loans granted by the platform in Argentina.
The article argued that, after strong growth in recent years, portfolio expansion would have stopped and, in addition, warned of a significant increase in default levels.
Marcos Galperin.
According to this publication, based on an alleged private report by JP Morgan, Mercado Pago's loan portfolio would have reached 1.1 billion dollars in January 2026, after increasing fivefold since 2024. However, he pointed out that since May 2025, growth would have slowed down
.
In addition, the note detailed that the credit business had 6.3 million active customers in the country, with an average of 3.3 loans per user, and that the total amount of current loans reached 21 million. It also included comparisons with other markets such as Brazil and Mexico, as well as estimates of each country's share of the company's global portfolio
.
Faced with this publication, Galn reacted harshly and denied the veracity of the data and conclusions presented. “At what point did these boys grab the soapy stick to the title of their “notes”? It's curious that every time they publish something about a topic that I know well, the “news” is 100% wrong,” he said.
The message of Marcos Galn.
With this statement, the businessman not only rejected the main points of the article, but also directly questioned the credibility of the
published content.
His position made it clear that the published information does not reflect the reality of the performance of Mercado Pago's credit business.
In this way, the note entitled “Wall Street already warns: Mercado Pago's credit portfolio stopped growing” was denied by the company's founder himself, who said that this is an incorrect and erroneous statement.
