Wednesday
January 6
2021

How Mexico’s Central Bank Plans to Move Payments to Digital

Slowly.

In an interview with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, Miguel Diaz, general director of payment systems and  market infrastructures at the Central Bank of Mexico (Banxico), said that  making and receiving payments across devices in an affordable manner, with faster payments infrastructure already in place, means that “every Mexican can send and receive electronic payments regardless of their economic background or any other conditions.”

Getting there, he told Webster, involves expanding financial inclusion through digital transactions that, effectively are — for the merchants and consumers involved– free.

The discussion took place as Diaz looked back at the 15 months that have passed since Banxico launched Cobro Digital (CoDi), the national digital payments platform that uses QR codes and NFC to enable users to transact with mobile devices. The platform lets B2B, P2P and other commerce take place over Mexico’s real time gross settlements payments system, known as SPEI (in turn tied to wire transfers) for short. Thus far, the numbers do not bear out a massive uptake of a business model, that for the stakeholders, is essentially free (There are roughly 38 banks signed on and 5 million users of CoDi, as measured in late 2020).

Photo courtesy of MegaPixl.

Source: PYMNTS (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Technology
Tags
business development, digital payments, financial inclusion