Payments in Latin America: Pix, cash, and cuotas. 6 chapters and a final quiz.

Chapter 1. A continent that skipped the card stage.

Latin America has more than 660 million people spread across some 20 countries. The region is one of the most dynamic in the world for payments, and one of the most puzzling for a European company. Where Europe moved from checks to cards, then to contactless, much of the continent went straight from cash to smartphones, driven by proactive central banks and fintechs that became giants.

This momentum hides a harsher reality. The region remains fragmented: each country has its own currency, central bank, and domestic rails, and sometimes capital controls. A merchant that “opens Latin America” is really opening 20 separate markets, each with its own local payment methods.

Chapter 2. Pix: Brazil’s revolution.

Launched by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) on November 16, 2020, Pix is the most used instant payment system in the world relative to population. Within four years, it became the country’s leading payment method, ahead of debit and credit cards combined. It is a textbook case studied by every central bank.

Why Pix succeeded where others failed

• Mandatory participation by large institutions: no chicken-and-egg problem, since everyone is reachable from day one
• Completely free for individuals, as required by the central bank
• Key (alias) system that hides bank details: paying becomes as easy as sending a message
• Single, mandatory brand: the Pix logo is the same in every banking app
• Open to fintechs and payment institutions, not just banks

Chapter 3. Brazil: installments, local cards, and the acquirer wars.

Pix has not killed the card: Brazil remains Latin America’s largest card market, with a consumer credit culture unlike any other in the world. Its hallmark is parcelamento sem juros, “interest-free” installment payments, the Brazilian equivalent of the Spanish-speaking world’s cuotas.

Parcelamento: a BNPL born in the hyperinflation years

A legacy of the 1980s and 1990s, when inflation made conventional credit impossible, parcelamento spreads a purchase over 2 to 12 monthly installments carried by the credit card. About half of in-store credit card volume is paid in installments. The merchant bears the cost, receiving funds only as each installment falls due unless it sells its receivables.

Elo, Hipercard: 100% Brazilian schemes

Elo is Brazil’s domestic scheme, created in 2011 by Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, and Caixa Econômica Federal, with more than 200 million cards issued, accepted first in Brazil and then abroad through partnerships. Hipercard (Itaú group) survives as a regional credit scheme. For a foreign merchant, accepting Elo almost always requires a local acquirer.

The “maquininha” wars

Until 2010, Brazilian acquiring was a locked-down duopoly: Cielo had exclusive rights to Visa, Redecard to Mastercard. The regulator forced the market open, triggering the maquininha wars, a battle over small, colorful card terminals. Stone and PagSeguro went after SMEs with terminals sold online, aggressive pricing, and instant receivables advances. MDRs melted away. Cielo was delisted in 2024 by Banco do Brasil and Bradesco so it could restructure away from the markets.

Chapter 4. Mexico: OXXO, SPEI, and the reign of cash.

The region’s second-largest economy, with 130 million people, Mexico is Brazil’s opposite in payments. Only 63% of adults have an account (ENIF 2024, Mexico’s national financial inclusion survey), and cash still dominates at the point of sale. In response, the country built one of the world’s most effective cash-to-digital bridges: paying at the convenience store.

OXXO: 23,000 convenience stores turned payment infrastructure

SPEI, CoDi, DiMo: the central bank takes the lead

Mexico’s interbank backbone, SPEI, operated by the central bank (Banxico) since 2004, carries near-real-time transfers, available 24/7. In 2019, Banxico launched CoDi, a free QR code payment layer built on SPEI, whose adoption remained marginal. DiMo (Dinero Móvil, 2023), which routes a payment using just a phone number, has gained far more traction.

Chapter 5. Argentina and the Southern Cone: wallets, inflation, and cuotas.

Argentina is a laboratory for what macroeconomics does to payments. Inflation hit 211% in 2023 (INDEC), then 118% in 2024, and has been easing since. In a context where holding cash pesos means watching them melt away, interest-bearing wallets took off and the cuotas culture took root.

Mercado Pago, the super app born from e-commerce

The financial arm of Mercado Libre (the “Amazon of Latin America”), Mercado Pago reports about 64 million monthly active users across the region (Q1 2025). In Argentina, its ecosystem covers everything, from QR payments and Point terminals for merchants to credit and prepaid cards. The decisive product is the interest-bearing account, whose balance is invested in a money market fund. When inflation tops 100%, a balance that earns interest every day is a knockout argument against cash.

The central bank (BCRA) mandated interoperability through the Transferencias 3.0 program (2020–2021): every payment QR code must accept any wallet, including MODO, the banks’ shared app. The interoperable QR code has become the standard for neighborhood retail in Argentina.

Cuotas, a social shock absorber for credit

As in Brazil, buying in installments is second nature, for appliances, clothing, or travel. The government even turned it into an economic policy tool with Ahora 12 (2014–2023), a 12-installment payment program at regulated rates, succeeded in February 2024 by Cuota Simple (3 or 6 installments). Without a cuotas option, a durable goods merchant is simply out of the market.

Chapter 6. Lessons and a market entry strategy for merchants.

This tour of the continent boils down to five key lessons, followed by an operational checklist for European or North American merchants entering these markets.

Checklist for entering a Latin American market

In practice, integration goes through the API of a PSP that covers local methods, as in this (simplified) example of creating a Pix payment with a dynamic QR code:

POST /v1/payments
{
  "amount": 24990,
  "currency": "BRL",
  "payment_method": {
    "type": "pix",
    "expires_in": 3600
  },
  "customer": {
    "name": "Ana Souza",
    "tax_id": "123.456.789-00"
  }
}

// Response: a QR code and its "copia e cola" (copy-and-paste) code
{
  "id": "pay_8f3k2j",
  "status": "pending",
  "pix": {
    "qr_code_url": "https://psp.example/qr/pay_8f3k2j.png",
    "copy_paste_code": "00020126580014br.gov.bcb.pix..."
  }
}

One last piece of advice: treat Latin America as a portfolio of markets, not as a bloc. Brazil is won with Pix + cuotas, Mexico with cards + OXXO + SPEI, Argentina with Mercado Pago + cuotas. Merchants who copy and paste their European checkout lose half their conversion rate there.