Boleto Bancário, also known as boleto, is a Brazilian cash payment method for utility bills, rent and in-store purchases accepted at more than 60,000 places in the country, including supermarkets, banks and lottery stores among others. It is also used to pay for ecommerce purchases, including international orders.
The Why are Brazilians Still Using and Preferring Boleto Bancário for Online Purchases? survey, conducted by EBANX, points the main reasons for this payment method’s popularity and gives insights into the Brazilian online shopping market, as well as a better understanding of why local consumers prefer to pay using boleto for ecommerce purchases. A total of 12,186 people from regions all across Brazil participated in the survey.
Most of those who choose to pay with Boleto Bancário have a checking account (71%) and have access to debit or credit cards. This shows that boleto is not only popular among the unbanked.
A familiar and safe payment method
Those surveyed cited disclose of card data (38.8%) and discounts (38.5%) as the two main reasons for choosing to pay with boleto. The survey shows that Brazilian consumers do not feel comfortable to provide credit card information online. This is despite the fact that many log into their bank account to pay for a boleto online.
The survey’s authors explain this peculiar process as a lack of trust in websites that consumers are not familiar with.When buying for the first time on an ecommerce website, Brazilian customers will often choose a payment method that they feel safe with and that does not require them to put their credit card data on an unfamiliar website.
Discounts are another important reason for boleto’s popularity. Many Brazilian online stores offer reduced prices for those who pay for their products/services using boleto. The survey’s authors explain that merchants prefer to offer discounts for purchases made with this payment method because of its low-risk and lack of issues such as chargebacks.
Age and income
40% of the buyers who responded to the survey are between 31 to 45 years old with access to credit, who are engaged in online activities but still prefer to purchase using the traditional Boleto Bancário. Millennial and post-millennial responded make up 35% of the total surveyed consumers and although these generations are highly connected to technologies such as online banking and virtual cards, in Brazil they still look for alternative payment methods because of personal preferences.
When it comes to income, the survey found that boleto is a preferred payment method for both low income and high income households in Brazil.
EBANX has made the full survey available here.
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