LatAm high-growth markets are facing a rapidly growing online shopping audience. Global companies are boosting their sales through localized payment experiences offering credit & debit cards, instalments, cash payments, BNPL, and bank transfers.
Brazil 🇧🇷 is LatAm’s largest e-commerce market and the fastest growing payment method is Pix representing 25% in 2023 and shall rise to 31% by 2025. Domestic credit cards are very important with a 43% share in 2022, it is expected to fall to 40% in 2023. Buy Now, Pay Later is approximately 2%. Digital wallets are the third most-used payment method, making up 14% of all transactions. This percentage is expected to increase in the future due to higher smartphone penetration. Here, the most popular wallets are Mercado Pago, PayPal and PicPay. Boleto Bancario is another leading payment system in Brazil, with over 24% of online purchases paid for via this method. Boleto allows customers to pay in a number of ways: bank transfer, credit card, or by converting currency into boleto (a pre-paid voucher).
Mexico 🇲🇽 International credit and debit cards, like Visa, Mastercard and American Express, are the most popular payment methods in Mexico, accounting for 65% of all digital transactions. This is likely due to the high cross-border spending of Mexican e-commerce compared to LATAM payments, which constitute 31% of all online spending. Local credit and debit cards are also adopted by the general population like for example Banamex. Cash is quite a popular payment method making up 20% of all digital payments. The number one cash payment method is Oxxo, which was developed by a Mexican convenience store to allow shoppers to pay for online purchases in any of the 13 000 OXXO stores in the country. Similar to Brazil, digital wallets are also quite popular in Mexico. Paypal is the most popular, with Visa Checkout, Masterpass and MercadoPago also widely used in the country. SPEI (Interbanking Electronic Payment System) was developed by Banco de México and allows your Mexican customer to make instantly electronic payments.Through SPEI merchants are offering to any banked person in Mexico a 24/7 hour solution to make transactions with a real time payment confirmation.
Argentina 🇦🇷 Credit cards are the most popular with a decent mix of both local and international brands. In fact, 45% of online transactions are made with credit cards, either with international ones like Visa and Mastercard or local ones such as Naranja, Cabal, Tarjeta Shopping, Argencard and Cencosud. Cash and digital wallets both account for 18% of all online transactions. Argentinians also have their own local cash payment options; RapiPago and PagoFacil. When paying online, both of these generate a voucher that can be paid for in cash at any network convenience stores. Lastly, digital wallets have exploded in this country with over 30 wallets in the market, but Mercado Pago still remains by far the most popular one.
Colombia 🇨🇴 has a low credit card penetration – only 16% of the adult population has one, Columbians are extremely comfortable with installments at the checkout – 70% of all online shoppers use installments. Bank transfers are another popular payment method in Columbia constituting 24% of all digital transactions. Here, PSE (Pagos Seguros en Línea) is the most preferred (40%) as it allows shoppers to pay online using bank transfers and without a credit card. Cash payments are also widely used in Columbia, representing 15% of all online payments.
Chile 🇨🇱, bank transfers are growing at the same pace as card penetration: with 82% of the adult population having a bank account, bank transfers are expected to reach 21% by 2025. Servipag is a secure and fast solution in which consumers can buy online by choosing, with just one click, one of the 21 available payment methods. Servipag processes an average of 9 million transactions per month and it is constantly working to facilitate online shopping for Chileans. The solution is used by 40% of Chileans who prefer not to use credit cards online.