A major joint report by South American central banks covering payment data from 2018 to 2022, published in September this year, confirms a widely perceived pattern in the region: the rapid growth of digital payments and the emergence of real-time transactions (through digital wallets or other instant payment rails).
Chile, in particular, has seen its payments industry boom, accounting for the region’s second-highest volume of retail payments as a share of GDP, behind only Brazil (see below) – something directly linked to the maturity of its economy in terms of financial inclusion and digitalisation.
Source: South American Central Banks' Primer Reporte de Sistemas de Pago de Sudamérica (RSPS)
*Retail payments include transfers, direct debit transactions, cards and e-instruments.
For years, Chile has been the Latin American nation with the most access to financial services and connectivity. In the latest survey by the telecommunications superintendence (SUBTEL) with CADEM, in 2023, 94.3% of Chileans said they had access to the Internet – 24% more than in 2015. Almost half (48.9%) indicated access to financial services as the main reason for paying for such connectivity. This was decisive for Chile’s development of its digital commerce market before others.
According to a study by Kantar IBOPE Media, seven out of ten Chileans have made an online purchase during the past six months, and 23% have bought products online once a month. However, proprietary data from Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence (PCMI) indicates international purchases still have a lot of room to grow in Chile, accounting for 25% of the market. This means that cross-border payment solutions have a vital role in developing the country's digital commerce. Global players' increasing acceptance of alternative payment methods (APMs) is crucial for the growth and development of international ecommerce.
Online purchases through mobile devices surpassed those on desktops in 2022 and have continuously grown, accounting for 59% of ecommerce volume in 2024, as per PCMI data.
PCMI’s latest estimates for 2024 also show that credit cards are the most used method in Chile for ecommerce purchases (60%), followed by debit cards (20%), and bank transfers (9%). While Chileans mostly use credit cards to pay for Software-as-a-Service- (SaaS) and travel-related purchases, debit cards are mostly used for ride-hailing and delivery expenses, and bank transfers for retail.
Top ecommerce payment methods share in Chile per vertical
Source: PCMI E-Commerce Data Library, 2024
The fourth edition of the Credicorp Financial Inclusion Index (IIF) with Ipsos identified Chile as the country that makes the best use of the financial system in Latin America, with 90% of people over 18 having a debit card. This high penetration of the method helps explain why alternatives to digital wallets have not gained much traction in the country, unlike in other places in the region.
PCMI data shows that even within retail purchases, wallet transactions account for less than 10%. New players entering the market, such as Apple Pay in August last year, may help to change this scenario in the long term. Mercado Libre's Mercado Pago (which has nearly 5 million customers in Chile) is currently the leading challenger in the segment.
Top digital wallets in Chile per payments share
Among bank transfer services, PCMI data shows that Webpay and Khipu are the leading players, with 74% and 16% of the market share, respectively.
Debit cards are also Chile’s leading payment method for in-person payments, accounting for 37% of the financial volume at the point-of-sale (POS), according to Worldpay's Global Payments Report 2024.
Top POS payment methods in Chile
Source: Worldpay's Global Payments Report 2024
Worldpay's study also shows Redcompra as the country's leading card scheme, with a 44% market share, followed by Mastercard (29%), Visa (27%), and Amex (1%). That is because Redcompra, managed by Transbank through Banco de Chile ATM's networks, is the only company in the country authorised to process debit and prepaid cards issued by banks – meaning it widely caters to consumers who don't have credit cards.
According to PCMI data, Banco del Estado de Chile and Banco Santander are the biggest issuers of debit cards, while CMR Falabella has a significant share of credit card issuance.
Debit card issuers' market share in Chile
Source: PCMI 2024
Credit card issuers' market share in Chile
Source: PCMI E-commerce Data Library, 2023
PCMI’s latest estimates point to a slowdown in Chile’s digital commerce market in the coming years, but with payments volumes still growing steadily, from USD 31.6 billion in 2023 to USD 42.7 billion in 2026.
While an overall picture is important, focusing on consumer behaviour delivers a deeper understanding of the market drivers. Over 60% of consumers in Chile use large retail stores such as Falabella, Lider, or Ripley to buy online. More than half of online shoppers in Chile (53%) are between 26 and 55 years old, according to the Santiago Chamber of Commerce (Cámara de Comercio de Santiago or CSS), which tracks ecommerce data.
CCS data also classifies the following as the best-selling ecommerce product categories in Chile:
Clothing (46%)
Footwear (30%)
Food (25%)
Electronics (24%)
Beauty (21%).
Looking at Latin America, we see that underpenetrated markets like Paraguay or Bolivia still need to enable alternative payments and migrate in-person retail volume to ecommerce to see digital commerce growth happen. On the other hand, highly penetrated markets like Chile, Brazil, and Colombia depend on driving user experience and payment method innovation to keep growing and becoming more digitally competitive. The high concentration of the Chilean banking industry is, however, an obstacle to this.
Earlier this year, Bicecorp and Grupo Security announced they would merge their businesses, creating a new institution ranking seventh in the country’s banking industry, with more than 2.4 million clients. Mergers have become a standard procedure in an already concentrated market. Since 2007, the Chilean market has gone from 25 to 17 banks, a decrease of more than a third of the players, meaning the only way to reach more clients is through these mergers.
However, some fintech companies seek the licences necessary to compete with Chilean incumbents. This is the case of Tanner, which has already obtained the first authorisation from the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF) for three verifications that it must get to become a bank. It is the first company to pursue this path in ten years. Tenpo is also doing this. The fintech, which already offers some financial services, has submitted its first application to the CMF for a banking licence.
According to the sixth edition of Fintech Radar Chile, prepared by Finnovista, Chile has 348 active fintech startups, an increase of 16% compared to the previous year.
For experts, the so-called Fintech Law, approved in 2022, and in force since 2023, has been crucial in breaking down barriers and establishing transparency, security, and consumer protection rules. The recent regulation of Open Finance, which came in the wake of the new law, is an example of this. However, there is still a long way to go before the law is fully implemented and information sharing truly becomes a competitive advantage for competitors over incumbents.
The current global venture capital winter is another challenge for Chilean fintechs in scaling their operations. Data from LAVCA, the association for private capital investment in Latin America, shows that venture capital investment in the region has experienced significant growth in recent years. It peaked in 2021 at USD 16 billion, before declining in 2022 (USD 7.9 billion) and 2023 (USD 4 billion). Chile was the fourth leading investment destination last year, attracting USD 238 million. LAVCA says Latin America is entering a stabilisation period, meaning investment will continue to flow, albeit slower.
In this context, it seems easier for large banks to advance in digitalisation and financial inclusion. One example is Banco de Chile’s FAN debit account. Launched in 2022, it already has more than 1.4 million customers – a significant amount in a nation of just 19 million inhabitants.
Banco Falabella, in turn, has taken a different path, one of further concentration, to expand its digital services. It decided to gradually incorporate the more than 2.3 million customers of its digital wallet, Fpay, into its banking app, forcing consumers to open a digital account with the financial institution.
It remains to be seen whether fintech competitors will be able to burst the existing concentration bubble before it grows even larger.
A KawesLab analysis shows that Chinese ecommerce platforms accounted for half of Chileans’ online international purchases in 2023. AliExpress led the segment, with 35% of cross-border transactions, while fast-fashion platform Shein came in third, with 13%. Between the two was US-based Amazon, at 18%. Temu, which debuted in Chile in the second half of last year, accounted for 3% of cross-border sales.
As in other major Latin American markets, Asian ecommerce giants will likely drive the growth of international shopping in Chile. The segment will be the only one to grow double digits in the coming years: 15% on average until 2027, per PCMI estimates.
Similarly to neighbouring Colombia, Chile's monetary authority has been imposing interoperability rules to encourage innovation within the payments industry and the emergence of instant payment solutions. It does not intend to create its proprietary system for real-time payments (RTP) transactions, as Brazil did. Instead, its focus is to enable the industry itself to develop solutions based on the standardisation of QR codes and account-to-account (A2A) transfers.
The institution's chairwoman, Rosanna Costa, recently said that the Central Bank has also included strengthening its Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System as a fundamental part of its 2023/2027 strategic plan, as it understands that it will need to support an increasingly large number of instant transactions.
Lindsay is a renowned thought leader in payments and an advisor to the world’s most exciting companies in the sector, including card networks, global marketplaces, and payment platforms. She founded PCMI as a global consultancy in 2022 after a 10-year career as a payments specialist in the Americas. Lindsay has managed over 400 client engagements in the payments industry and grew her team from 1 person to more than 50 consultants based around the world.
PCMI is an advisory group focused on the global payments industry, with over 30 years of experience providing market intelligence to corporations, executing more than 500 client engagements in the payments industry since 1991. PCMI performs custom strategic engagements, including market sizing, opportunity benchmarking, market entry, customer insights, and more, covering over 50 global markets in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. Visit www.paymentscmi.com to learn more.
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