Latin America is often framed as a single fintech success story, defined by rapid digital adoption, instant payments, and growing financial inclusion. But according to Jaroslav Glisnik, the reality on the ground is far more fragmented. From Peru’s bank-led wallet ecosystem and Colombia’s competitive payments landscape to Argentina’s crypto-driven consumer behaviour and Mexico’s enduring reliance on cash, each market is shaped by distinct economic, cultural, and regulatory dynamics.
Here, Jaroslav explores why payment providers and operators cannot rely on a one-size-fits-all strategy across the region, and why local trust and partnerships remain critical to success.
Does the Peru/Colombia convergence narrative reflect on-the-ground reality, or is the market more fragmented than the data suggests?
Every Latin American market faces a different reality when it comes to the adoption of new payment methods, shaped by banking penetration, legislation, and digital culture habits. Pix in Brazil became almost a global trendsetter overnight, as during its first week of launch in 2020 it was adopted by 16.5% of the population. This was mainly possible because the solution was developed by the Brazilian Central Bank and then pushed down to all financial institutions in the country as mandatory.
In the case of Peru, Yape is the leading mobile A2A payments platform, launched by one of the main Peruvian commercial banks, Banco de Crédito del Perú. Thus, it is primarily a banking app with limited interoperability, whose large penetration was largely enabled by the concentration of the national banking industry within four to five main players. Still, we can observe that rural areas have a lower percentage of users than larger cities.
Colombia is different and much more fragmented. While Brazil and Peru started to build their respective instant payment ecosystems from scratch, in Colombia alternative solutions such as QR code payments, digital wallets, and PSE already existed. The banking industry is also very competitive which is why the Colombian Central Bank initiative called Bre-B is clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of Pix, but without legislative backing it will be much harder to achieve similar results.
In some way, we can see that both countries are converging toward Pix-style instant P2P payments, but diverse market realities mean that both the process and the final outcome are likely to be very different.
How are operators approaching multi-market payment stack decisions in LatAm — one regional build or country-by-country?
The whole Latin American region is highly diverse, and this has clear implications for multi-market payment stack decisions. On paper, the objective is clear: enable the transition from a highly cash-reliant population toward a more digitalized and financially inclusive society. Many users of P2P instant payment platforms did not even have a bank account or payment cards before solutions such as Pix or Yape emerged. These platforms have also enabled governments to collect more user data, gradually reduce the informal economy, and further boost economic growth. However, when it comes to implementing such solutions in each country, the reality could not be more different.
Even though it is difficult to build a solution on a regional basis, we can observe some similarities. For example, when Yape sought international expansion, it naturally chose Bolivia, as it most closely resembled its home market: significant social differences between urban and rural populations, low banking penetration, and high reliance on cash.
When Mercado Libre, by far the most valuable Latin American company and very popular in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay), decided to enter Peru with its Mercado Pago platform, it did not succeed. Peruvians simply trust local platforms more and prefer purchases with instalment plans.
Therefore, I would advise first understanding the cultural and historical context of each country and then applying those insights to the implementation of payment platforms.
Does Argentina’s crypto-adjacent wallet behaviour represent a permanent structural feature rather than a transitional phase?
Argentina is one of the most fascinating countries for economists to study in terms of its economic development in recent decades, and the payment industry is no exception. After years of hyperinflation and economic crises, overall confidence in the local currency and financial institutions became so low that companies faced the opposite issue compared to other LatAm countries. While in the rest of the region large segments of the population relied heavily on cash and stakeholders sought ways to connect them to banks, in Argentina companies competed to offer better solutions as alternatives to a local currency that was losing value overnight.
Initially, digital wallets allowed users to hold US dollars, but the government later introduced more than ten different exchange rates for diverse purposes, eventually nearly exhausting its currency reserves.
As a result, crypto-adjacent wallets became a sensible solution. Stablecoins pegged to the US dollar have become a common way to access the currency and protect savings. Until the country stabilizes economically and people regain trust in institutions, this behaviour can be seen as permanent rather than transitional. Moreover, the current government of Javier Milei views crypto more as an opportunity than a threat, with new legislation on the way that also involves banks. We may see stablecoins becoming a regular part of cross-border transactions.
How are payment providers and infrastructure players positioning to support operators navigating this complexity?
Even if we, as payment innovators, do everything right, we may still fail. Mexico, the second-largest economy in Latin America, has a relatively developed banking industry and high banking penetration, yet a large part of the population still relies on cash. Many digital wallets and instant payment systems have tried to gain traction, but fragmentation and cultural habits remain major obstacles.
In Mexico, a local phenomenon that turned out to be the main competitor to innovative fintechs is Oxxo. It is a convenience store chain with more than 20,000 locations across the country, where people not only buy groceries but also pay utility bills, settle online purchases, and make deposits and withdrawals, always in cash.
The key is to understand and address the needs of the underserved population. Even though the value of their daily transactions may not be very high, they represent a significant share of the population.
We may have the most technologically advanced solution, but it can still be outperformed by a local brand that has been doing the same thing for decades. In Latin America, instead of pushing our platform aggressively, the most important step is to find a well-established local partner that has already gained the trust of the population and can help us grow under its wing.
Nubank, one of the largest neobanks in the world and one of the most highly valued companies in Latin America, recently decided to expand its activities in Mexico by partnering with Oxxo. This story speaks for itself.
