Financial Services Review | Monday, February 14, 2022
Over 120 million Latin Americans, or 33 percent of the region's total population, used digital-only bank accounts or mobile wallets
FREMONT, CA: Visa and Mastercard are courting fintechs to help them reach more customers in Latin America, where a large number of people are unbanked and rely on nonbanks for financial services. Technology alliances have been critical to the US card networks' aspirations to grow across borders because internet companies have succeeded in reaching a market that banks have underserved.
Terry Angelos, Visa's global head of fintech stated that they are assisting their partners in a variety of areas, including digital wallets, crypto-linked card programmes, digital banking, buy now/pay later, B2B payments, cross-border remittances, bill payments, payments infrastructure, and P2P payments, both in the United States and around the world. According to the World Bank, only 56 percent of Latin Americans hold typical bank accounts (by comparison, 85 percent to 90 percent of the U.S. is considered banked, according to Aite-Novarica).
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Many unbanked Latin Americans, on the other hand, have opened accounts with fintechs. As of the end of 2020, Americas Market Intelligence predicts that over 120 million Latin Americans, or 33 percent of the region's total population, used digital-only bank accounts or mobile wallets. Latin America has become a hub for fintech development as a result of this. According to Americas Market Intelligence, half of Latin Americans with traditional bank accounts also have digital wallets or digital-only bank accounts. The firm estimated that in 2021, 88 percent of the population in Brazil had digital accounts with banks and/or fintechs.
In Latin America, the emergence of neobanks and digital wallet providers has created chances for Visa and Mastercard to issue cards. Around 100 Latin American and Caribbean fintechs had issued a total of 100 million digital Mastercards throughout the region as of November 2021. Digital wallet providers like Argentina's Ualá and neobanks like Brazil's Nubank and C6 Bank are among these issuers. Debit cards are widely used by the neobank and digital wallet partners in Latin America, said Arnoldo Reyes, Visa's head of fintech, initiatives, and business development. For example, Rappi, a Latin American on-demand delivery startup, distributes Visa debit cards linked to its Rappi Pay wallet, as well as Visa credit cards that have seen incredible growth.
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