Jose Marti, Head Of Global Sales at PayRetailers, Speaks on Payments in Latin America

PayRetailers is a payment gateway designed to handle mass online payments in Latin America. 

Today, Fazzaco is honored to have Jose Marti, Head Of Global Sales at PayRetailers, to join us and share his ideas on payments in Latin America.

Fazzaco: Could you please give us a brief introduction to your services and Latin America's payment market?

Jose: The Latin American market is quite complex when it comes to payments. Given the various financial regulations and the different currencies across the region, each country operates extremely different than the other. Our expertise in the market has allowed us to take this burden off online operators across every industry. The online space in Latin America goes far beyond your traditional credit and debit card processing. This is a market where consumers prefer paying in their local forms of payments which include cash online and digital bank transfers. For example, in a monstruous market like Brazil, 68% of consumers mentioned Boleto as their preferred payment methods. The same goes with each of the countries in Latin America. Our strength is that with just one integration and one agreement we can offer online operators the ability to accept more than 250 payment methods, ranging from local bank transfers, cash payment methods, cards and wallet transactions. This allows our clients access to over 90% of the market with the ability to accept each of the local currencies.

We also have physical presence in every country in which we operate and are partnered with the respective Fintech associations. This allows us to properly advise and support our clients.

Fazzaco: In your opinion, what's the most important thing in developing a payment gateway? How can a business evaluate the stability and integration of a gateway?

Jose: A gateway that can cover multiple payment options with a single API and single agreement for the whole market in which you want to operate in is extremely important. However, In a market like Latin America, local expertise is just as or even more important. As previously discussed, this market is extremely unique and having a payment partner with local presence and representation can help you make the most out of it. With all this we can eliminate cross-border payment complexities and minimize operational costs. We take care of all in-country payin and payout operations, currency conversion and reconciling your charges in order to settle in various currencies.

Apart from being a payments provider, we pride in having the ability and knowledge to advise each of our merchants the best tips and tricks to be successful in each of the countries we operate.  

Fazzaco: What's trending in the payment market? Do you think mobile payment will finally replace web terminals?

Jose: More and more payments are becoming centralized in different countries. For example, PIX in Brazil. However, cultural tendencies play a big role in how consumers pay in their respective countries. I believe this is much stronger than mobile payments hence cash online and online bank transfers will never disappear.

Fazzaco: Do you think we are entering a cash-less society?

Jose: This may be true for some regions around the world but today, more than ever, cash is extremely important. Even in a country like the United States, 25% of the population is either unbanked or underbanked. This means, that if this demographic wants to purchase online, they need to resort to alternative forms of payments. Going back to my comments about cultural preferences, Latin America is a market where cash is king. At PayRetailers we are committed to help fight financial inclusion by partnering with payment options that allow those in a cash only environment to still be able to participate in online purchases.