Latin America is in the middle of a digital transformation. Today, the region is home to 17 “unicorns” compared to zero just three years ago, and e-commerce is leading the way.

Enter WABI, an e-commerce ecosystem transforming the way consumers buy and interact with their money, predominantly via their mobile phone. WABI’s offerings include Wabi, an on-demand grocery marketplace, Wabipay, a virtual wallet for easily and reliably managing money, and four other digital businesses.

“We are disrupting traditional business channels,” says Federico Galli, general manager of Wabipay. “Our goal is to simplify transactions between individuals and businesses.”

But with various digital properties across its web and mobile apps, WABI had different approaches to authentication in each one, resulting in a disjointed user experience. To consolidate their user identities into a single ecosystem and prepare for growth, WABI had to restructure its identity and access management (IAM).

Finding the Right Blend of Simplicity and Security

As a startup, WABI has a small development team distributed across their product line. They originally relied on their developers to create authentication in-house, but the end result produced a siloed authentication user experience. Juan Manuel Mingo, Wabipay’s business manager, explains the problem.

“We had different platforms with different user registration processes," he says. "Our aim was to unify all the user registration of the different platforms in order to get a better user experience, and to have a more organized user database.”

WABI also wanted to increase the security of their authentication solution to keep users’ financial data safe from exploitation. The team didn’t want to slow themselves down by rebuilding authentication from scratch, so they needed a plug-and-play identity solution that didn’t require additional manpower.

As Wabi’s founders and leaders are Argentinian, WABI was familiar with Auth0’s founders and reached out to learn more. After testing Auth0’s capabilities using the developer plan, WABI found the platform easy-to-use and graduated to the enterprise tier, beginning with Wabipay.

Auth0 Customer Support Makes the Difference

Wabipay’s implementation of Auth0 required configuration around their original authentication cluster, creating a challenge for their lean development team. Due to the complexity of their legacy system, Wabipay relied on Auth0’s customer support to get up and running.

“We worked closely with Auth0 support for our implementation,” says Galli. “We appreciated their expertise and reliability.”

Today, tens of thousands of Wabipay users can sign up or login using username and password or Sign in With Apple. Simplifying the login and introducing a social login feature has been well received by Wabipay users.

“In the past, users could only log in using a username,” says Galli. “With Auth0, they can log in using their email or Sign in with Apple, so they are really happy about that.”

Scaling Confidently With Auth0

Soon, WABI’s vision of a connected ecosystem will become a reality. The team is implementing Single Sign On to connect Wabipay with Wabi, and more digital properties will follow. Galli explains what that flow will look like: “Our endgame is that you enter the ecosystem through Wabi," he says. "You log in to Wabi, order your things, and when you want to pay, you simply go to WabiPay and you're already logged in. We want the process to be simple and transparent for all our users.” 

WABI currently operates in 11 countries, and in 2021, they plan to expand into four more. That would connect them to millions of new users, making financial transactions simpler along the way. 

“We want to be all over the planet, so we need to be scalable,” says Mingo. “WABI is scalable and we need a partner that is, too. We believe Auth0 will support us in getting there.”