- Jaime González Gasque
- 25 minutes ago
- 2 min read
FinTech companies like Clip and Mercado Pago are responsible for 80% of POS terminals in Mexico, but they only capture 5.6% of transaction volume. That's not digitization. It's a terminal graveyard.
Meanwhile, Mastercard presents itself as the "strategic partner" for digitizing payments in Mexico with Merchant Cloud, Tap on Phone, SoftPOS, tokenization, AI, and cybersecurity. The narrative is impeccable. But the numbers don't add up.
🔹 8.5 MILLION businesses in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean exclusively handle cash.
🔹 70% are micro-enterprises. 64% operate informally.
🔹 Only 27% of merchants in Mexico accept cards via POS — and of those that have a terminal, most barely use it.
🔹 Cash represents 58% of personal consumption spending in the region.
🔹In Mexico, contactless payments barely reach 34%.
For the small-time taco vendor just starting out, the interchange fee isn't a "cost of doing business." It's a TAX on digitalization. Cash costs him ZERO, he doesn't pay taxes, and it's used seamlessly by 94% of his customers.
And here's the structural contradiction that no one is mentioning:
Mastercard LIVES off interchange fees. Part of its model depends on merchants paying to process card transactions.
Now Mastercard is promising to "digitize the 8.5 million businesses in Mexico." But its model DEPENDS on charging them a fee. And Banxico (the Bank of Mexico) is building a world where SPEI (Interbank Electronic Payment System) is free, the user experience is standardized by law, and it works with a phone number—no card, no terminal, no Mastercard.
An informal business doesn't need another terminal. It needs to accept digital payments without costing it money.
Digital payment revenue in Latin America is projected to triple by 2027. A 10% increase in adoption generates a measurable impact on GDP. The market is enormous. But capturing it requires addressing the informal economy—not selling it more infrastructure.
While Mastercard sells solutions for accepting card payments, Banxico is building a world where accepting payments is free and universal by regulatory design. The question is no longer whether Mastercard can digitize Mexico. It's whether Mexico needs it to do so.
Banxico believes no. Their actions speak for themselves: they are building a system where transferring money is free, instant, and standardized by law. For that, guess what? They simply don't need Mastercard.
Two proposed solutions: Mastercard proposes more card infrastructure. Banxico proposes free and universal transfers. Neither solves the real problem: the informal economy.
If 80% of the terminals are already installed and only capture 5.6% of the volume... is the problem a lack of infrastructure or a lack of incentives?
By Carlos Valderrama.