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BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 71 Retail payments in Latin America and the Caribbean: present and future 1 Retail payment services in Latin America and the Caribbean are characterised by high costs and insufficient access for large swathes of the regions population. To overcome these limitations, some of the larger central banks in the region have taken the lead to introduce fast retail payments and develop an open banking ecosystem. Several others have launched central bank digital currency pilots. The shift to digital payments, which is supported by these policy initiatives, is likely to receive further impetus from the Covid-19 pandemic. JEL classification: E42, E58. Despite the widespread adoption of mobile and internet technology, countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have not been at the forefront of payment innovation. Relative to other regions, retail payment services in LAC continue to involve high costs for end users and be of subpar efficiency, partly reflecting low competition among financial institutions and limited compatibility among different payment solutions. Along with low income levels, high informality and low financial literacy, high costs contribute to limiting the access to electronic and digital payments for large swathes of the regions population. However, conditions in LAC are ripe for a change. Central banks and other public authorities have recently launched important initiatives to improve national payment systems, which complement developments in the private sector. In recent years, the region has seen a sharp rise in the number of fintech firms offering more convenient ways to pay, and big tech firms have begun to integrate payment services into their e-commerce or social media platforms. However, private sector incentives are not always aligned with social goals. Central banks are the ultimate source of trust in money and payments and therefore play a key role in maintaining the safety and integrity of payment systems as well as ensuring that private sector innovation is channelled towards improving competition, consumer protection and financial inclusion, and preserving financial stability (BIS (2020). These efforts to improve payment services have received further impetus from the Covid-19 outbreak. Both the volume and value of digital payments have been rising faster than before the pandemic. Many individuals had a strong incentive or no alternative other than to use digital payments during lockdowns, and governments 1 We thank Claudio Borio, Carlos Cant, Stijn Claessens, Angelo Duarte, Jon Frost, Daniel Garrido, Wenqian Huang, Thomas Lammer, Benot Mojon, Daniel Reiss, Tara Rice, Hyun Song Shin, Takeshi Shirakami and Nikola Tarashev for helpful comments and suggestions. We are also grateful to Cecilia Franco and Rafael Guerra for excellent research assistance. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank for International Settlements. Viviana Alfonso viviana.alfonsocbis Alexandre Tombini alexandre.tombinibis Fabrizio Zampolli fabrizio.zampollibis 72 BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 relied on them to disburse social benefits more rapidly and efficiently. Having become more familiar with digital payments, new users might continue to make frequent use of them once the pandemic ends. This special feature first sets the stage by describing the key shortcomings of national retail payment services in LAC. It then turns to the main policy initiatives that aim to make domestic retail payments faster, more affordable and more inclusive. It finally documents how Covid-19 and the related mobility restrictions have accelerated the use of digital payments. The main shortcomings of retail payment services in LAC Retail payment systems share a number of features. They handle a large volume of low-value individual payments. But they have operational limits. In many countries, payment orders can be placed only on working days during certain hours, and their execution and finalisation normally takes one or more working days. In addition, even when retail payment systems are relatively fast, lack of competition between payment service providers and weak interoperability between existing retail payment mechanisms makes them costly for end users. Combined with other structural factors such as low income levels and poor financial literacy, the result is insufficient access by the population to payment instruments other than cash, which in turn severely restricts access to broader financial services such as credit and insurance. Despite some improvement over recent years, these issues continue to be particularly severe in LAC. Weak interoperability and low competition drive high user costs Interoperability is the technical or legal compatibility that enables a payment system or mechanism to be used in conjunction with other systems or mechanisms. It allows participants in different systems to conduct, clear and settle payments or financial transactions across those systems. In particular, interoperability does not require users and providers to participate in multiple systems (CPMI (2016a). In LAC, such compatibility is much more limited than in other regions. For example, full interoperability of automated teller machines (ATMs) and point of sale (POS) terminals is present in only a third of LAC countries, compared with 75% in Asian emerging market economies (EMEs) and 97% in advanced economies. Furthermore, interoperability in LAC has not kept pace with technological innovation. Only 10% of LAC jurisdictions offer full interoperability for mobile money services, compared with 75% in Asian EMEs and 25% of sub-Saharan African countries (Graph 1, left-hand panel). The boom of digital wallets, which has led to various Key takeaways Limited access to retail payment services and their high costs are significant challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean. Central banks in the region have undertaken major initiatives aimed at promoting more efficient and inclusive payment systems. The Covid-19 pandemic should reinforce the momentum of these policy initiatives, as it has accelerated the shift to digital payments and underscored the need for more inclusive and lower-cost payments. BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 73 systems that do not communicate with each other (closed loop systems), has reinforced this effect. Lower levels of interoperability have important implications. They normally translate into higher costs to process a transaction and a longer time for the funds to reach the payee. Additionally, weak interoperability may limit competition among payment service providers (PSPs), mostly banks, thus helping keep high margins on the transactions they process. In LAC, banking competition as proxied by net interest margins is among the weakest across regions (Graph 1, centre panel). All of this translates into fees charged to final users that are the highest among EMEs. For example, total fees charged to consumers and merchants reached 4% of GDP in 2018 (right-hand panel). From this total, credit card fees the most important source of LAC banks payment revenues amounted to over 1% of GDP, well above the 0.4% in Asia and 0.2% in Europe and some African countries. Similarly, the cost of domestic transactions for consumers was above 0.7% of GDP in the region, compared with 0.2% in Asia-Pacific. True interoperability is unlikely to develop spontaneously. As it is a public good, private operators may not always have sufficient incentives to coordinate and invest in making their payment infrastructure more compatible. Besides, as noted above, incumbents and new players may not have the incentive to allow competing PSPs to interact in a way that is conducive to a competitive level playing field (BIS (2020). Thus, unsurprisingly, interoperability tends to be strongly shaped by public policy. In this regard, LAC countries have adopted three general models. The first in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru is a market-wide approach requiring Costs of payments in LAC are high, reflecting limited interoperability Graph 1 Degree of technical interoperability by region Net interest margin 1 Consumer payment revenues 3, 4 Per cent Per cent Percentage of GDP EAP = East Asia and Pacific; ECA = Europe and Central Asia; EMEA = Europe, Middle East and Africa; HI OECD = high-income OECD; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; MENA = Middle East and North Africa; SSA = subSaharan Africa. 1 Data for 2017. 2 Middle East, Russia and South Africa. 3 Data for 2018. 4 The regional GDP equals the sum of individual countries GDP. 5 AU, CN, HK, IN, ID, JP, KR, MY, NZ, PH, RU, SG, TH and TW. 6 AT, BE, CH, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HU, IE, IT, LT, LU, LV, MT, NL, NO, PL, PT, SA, SE, SI, SK, TR and ZA. 7 AR, BR, CL, CO, MX and PE. 8 Credit-related income also counts some types of revenue that may be considered an ancillary service (credit) other than revenues from payment services, eg net interest income for revolving balances. Sources: Beck et al (2000); McKinsey (2019b); World Bank, Global Payment Systems Survey (GPSS). 100 80 60 40 20 0 ECA LAC SSA H I O ECD EAP M EN A South A sia ECA LAC SSA H I O ECD EA P M EN A South A sia EC A LAC SSA H I O ECD EA P M EN A South A sia ATM POS money Mobile Full Interoperability level: Good Low Zero 7.5 6.0 4.5 3.0 1.5 0.0 LAC O ther European Asian AEs EMEs 2 EM Es EM Es 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 Asia- Pacific 5 Canada US / EMEA 6 Latin America 7 Consumer Commercial Credit card fees Domestic transactions Cross-border transactions Credit-related income 8 74 BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 that most PSPs seamlessly transfer retail payments among themselves. 2 The second adopted in Chile, Colombia and Paraguay is a focused approach in which interoperability is required or encouraged, either for only a given set of payment types or for only some PSPs. 3 The third model adopted in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua is one with no specific requirement for interoperability, as it assumes that private initiatives should flourish first and then coordinate to become mutually compatible. Low level of access to digital payments As the world has transitioned to digital payments, LAC residents access to payment services has lagged behind that of residents of other regions. In 2017, on average across LAC countries, only 49% of adults had access to transaction accounts to make 2 In Brazil and Mexico, all major financial institutions must connect with each other with no (explicit) cost to individuals. In Argentina, the central bank has required interoperability between bank and digital accounts. In Costa Rica, the central bank has established an infrastructure that allows bank account holders to initiate payments through mobile phones. In Peru, the government has led a project to offer a fully interoperable mobile money service based on a single brand BIM. Pagos Digitales Peruanos operates the brand and centralises all commercial, operating and marketing efforts for the wallet, while financial entities and mobile money issuers compete to attract users. 3 In Paraguay, there is interoperability for person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-business (P2B) transactions across banks, but transfers from mobile money to bank accounts are not yet possible. In Chile, regulators have focused on opening up the market for new card transaction processors. In Colombia, there is interoperability among banks, but the recent regulation for non-bank PSPs does not include interoperability requirements. The share of adults with access to transaction accounts in LAC is relatively small In per cent Graph 2 By region By country By regulatory approach 1 Middle East, Russia and South Africa. Sources: World Bank, Findex; authors calculations. 80 60 40 20 0 AEs European Asian Other Caribbean Latin EMEs EMEs EMEs 1 America 2011 2014 2017 80 60 40 20 0 NIMXGTCOPYECDOCRCL SVHTPEHNPAARBOUYBRTT Total Poorest 40% Rural Richest 60% 60 45 30 15 0 8 6 4 2 0 interoperabilitywide NoFocusedMarket Access to transaction accounts (lhs) Net interest margin (rhs) BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 75 and receive payments. 4 This compares with 92% in advanced economies, 80% in emerging Asia and 70% in other EMEs (Graph 2, left-hand panel). The average figures, however, mask great heterogeneity across LAC countries, as well as within countries. In Brazil and Costa Rica, the share of adults with access to transaction accounts is closer to that of EMEs in other parts of the world (70% and 68%, respectively), but in El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua, account ownership is a mere 30%. Within countries, access to transaction accounts is lower in rural areas, where infrastructure tends to be less developed and banks less present, and for low- income individuals, who are less likely to meet minimum fund requirements for opening a transaction account (Graph 2, centre panel). In all LAC countries but Trinidad and Tobago, the share of adults with access to transaction accounts is at least 16 percentage points higher among the richest 60% of the population relative to the poorest 40%. Regulation concerning interoperability (see above) also seems to matter. Access to transaction accounts is, on average, highest among countries that have adopted a market-wide approach (57%), followed by those that have adopted the focused approach (52%). Unsurprisingly, it is the lowest in jurisdictions with no current requirements for interoperability (38%) (Graph 2, right-hand panel). In addition, net interest margins our proxy for competition in the banking sector tend to be higher in countries with no requirements for interoperability, highlighting the link between interoperability and competition in payment services (right-hand panel). Access issues are also evident in cash and cashless payments in LAC. Cash in circulation is relatively high in most of the regions countries and has increased in some in the past few years (Graph 3, left-hand panel), although part of the rise may 4 Transaction accounts are defined as accounts (including e-money/prepaid accounts) held with banks or other authorised and/or regulated PSPs, which can be used to make and receive payments and to store value (CPMI-WB (2016). Cash use in LAC prevails over cashless payments Graph 3 Cash in circulation Use of cashless payments 1 Ratio of cash withdrawals to card transactions (value) Percentage of GDP Transactions per year Ratio 1 Data for 2017. Sources: CEMLA, Yellow Book statistics; CPMI, Red Book statistics. 15 12 9 6 3 0 SEZACRIDKRTTMXPYCOSGIN BRDOTRCLJMARGTSACNRUEC LAC Other countries 2014 2017 750 600 450 300 150 0 GTINECIDJMDOTRCLCRRUKR PYCOSAMXARTTZACNBRSESG LAC Other countries Cashless payments per capita: 5 4 3 2 1 0 CNSGCLTRZADOJMMXINSA SERUTTCRBRARPYCOIDEC LAC Other countries 76 BIS Quarterly Review, December 2020 be due to store-of-value motives (Bech et al (2018). High cash use, in turn, goes
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