Country Payments Market Profile: Mexico

With a population of nearly 122 million in 2015, Mexico has the 12th largest population in the world. President Enrique Pena Nieto was elected in 2012 promising to bring reforms to the country and make the country more attractive to foreign investment. The country’s payments future is promising, and Mexico already has significant infrastructure in place that can accelerate the migration to electronic payments.

The potential among both the existing banked and unbanked populations of Mexico highlights the likelihood that in a relatively short time Mexico could be transformed into one of the leading markets for electronic payments outside of the more mature economies around the world.

Mercator Advisory Group’s latest research note, Country Payments Market Profile: Mexico,provides a high-level examination of key banking and payment indicators like the number of branches and ATMs and number and value of payment card transactions. Data for 2014 and growth within the past five years is presented as well as Mercator’s SWOT analysis of the market’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to evaluate its attractiveness from the perspective of the payments industry.

“While geographically part of North America, Mexico is far more aligned with other countries in Central and South America in terms of its electronic payment potential. As investment and industry interest has increased in these regions, Mexico should not be overlooked. Although it is not at the same level or may not have the same degree of payments development as Brazil, Mexico is at or above the development of other markets in the region including Argentina, Colombia, and Chile,” comments Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group and the primary author of the note.

This research note contains 10 pages and 6 exhibits.

Companies mentioned in this note include: Visa, MasterCard.