Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent Holdings Ltd says it has invested US$180 million in a minority stake in Brazilian financial technology company Nu Pagamentos SA (Nubank), Reuters says, citing a joint announcement.

The news agency quotes Nubank Chief Executive David Velez as saying Nubank will use half the money to increase its capital and half to buy stakes in Nubank held by other shareholders.

Mr Velez said Tencent will help Nubank, which is in the credit card and electronic payments business, to develop its payments, consumer lending, engineering and machine learning businesses.

He said Nubank was due to begin lending to consumers this year.

The report quotes Tencent President Martin Lau as saying the investment by his company is meant to help Nubank “build a full-service personal finance platform”.

The investment is the first by Tencent in Brazil, Reuters says.