The Spread and Impact of Faster Payments Across LAC

A World Bank blog ¹ looks at fast payment systems (FPS) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) based on a new World Bank report that analyses data on FPS across 11 LAC countries ². It found that the introduction of digital wallets has simplified the process and reduced the cost of transferring money in LAC. However, friction remains due to siloed payment infrastructures and uncompetitive markets.

The report finds a key inflection point began around 2020, when FPS deployments began in seven LAC countries, coinciding with a sharp increase in consumer demand for digital payments catalysed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, at least a dozen LAC countries have developed FPS, for example Sinpe in Costa Rica and Pix in Brazil, enabling free or low-cost digital payments from mobile phones, with recipients receiving the funds within seconds, regardless of their financial institution. In Brazil and Costa Rica, more than 75% of adults use Pix and Sinpe, respectively. Overall in LAC, the number of fast payment transactions has increased 130-fold over the past eight years, from 620 million in 2017 to 79.8 billion in 2024.