Mexico. Tecnocom and International Financial Analysts (Afi) have presented the Tecnocom Report on Trends in Payment Methods 2016, the sixth edition of a study that analyzes the evolution of payment methods in Mexico and in six other countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Dominican Republic and Spain).
The Report highlights the continued growth of the number of cards in circulation in Mexico, especially in debit, with a park that in this modality has doubled in the last five years. Thus, in 2015, 171 million cards were counted, distributed in 141 million debit (+5.3%) and 30 million credit (3.8%). The number of purchase operations carried out in Mexico with debit cards increased by 22% in 2015, a rate that more than triples that registered with credit cards (6.2%). In dollarized value, growth is more timid (3.1% in debit) and even falls (-8.4% in credit) compared to the previous year.
On the acquiring side, Mexico registers the lowest rates in the region in point of sale (POS) and ATM terminals per million inhabitants (6,700 and 360, respectively), in addition to a 5% drop in the number of non-bank correspondents (CNB), placing it at the tail of the region in CNB/inhabitant ratio.
The Tecnocom Report 2016 includes a novel demoscopic research carried out in collaboration with The Cocktail Analysis, from which some conclusions are drawn that affect the attitude and preferences of the banked population (with a bank account and / or payment card) on the access and use of different means of electronic payment, both in Spain and in Latin America.
There is room for growth in credit card penetration in Mexico, where 19.4% of bankees declare that they do not have a payment card associated with their bank account. Moreover, 7.3% declare that they have decided to stop having it, alluding to the high costs of the service and the difficulty of controlling the expense as the main reasons for rejection.
10% of banked Mexicans make all their daily payments exclusively by card, while 26% do not use it alluding to the slightest privacy compared to cash as the main reason. A card payment method that offers additional privacy and fraud security attributes would encourage 81% and 85% of Mexicans, respectively, to make greater use of their cards.
In contrast, 72.4% of Mexicans withdraw money from ATMs once or several times a week, the highest frequency recorded in the countries analyzed. In relation to the use of credit card financing, one in seven Mexicans admits to having difficulties in attending to the deferred payment.
The Report also devotes special attention to the development of online payment and mobile payment methods. 43% of the banked make online purchases every month, mostly from the computer, but increasingly through the Smartphone. The most used means of payment to operate in this channel are the payment card (69%), PayPal (21%) and bank transfer (19%). E-commerce purchases reached $16.22 billion in 2015 (+59%).
In relation to mobile payment, while the card is a widely used and known device, the preference for it clearly exceeds (72.1%) the option of mobile payment. Although, the deployment of contactless equipment is still timid in Mexico, where only 7% declare to have a contactless card and 2.3%, use it.
The confidence in department stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets (80%) and large online commerce (73%) for the initiation of payments with direct charge to the bank account registers in Mexico the highest level in the region, and much greater than the willingness to authorize the direct collection in tax account (38.4%).
The Tecnocom Report on Trends in Payment Methods 2016 is available HERE
