Through the initiator, developed by the Central Bank of Brazil and part of the Open Banking framework, the company hopes to increase the number of virtual shopping carts that turn into sales – the so-called conversion.
PIX accounts for about 25% of the volume processed by Mercado Pago and shows greater success in getting a purchase through to the end. According to the company, about 75% of transactions in which PIX is the means of payment reach the end. In boleto, which has been largely replaced by instant payment, the conversion is much lower, around 40%.
The idea of Mercado Pago is to use the initiator to go after the 25% that, even using PIX, do not complete the purchase. The tool, roughly speaking, allows the customer to authorise the institution that processes the payment to debit the funds directly from the bank account. This eliminates a series of steps, like opening the bank app, pasting the PIX code, and validating everything with the password, and then returning to the store. This is when many customers give up.
Approved by the Central Bank in February 2022, Mercado Pago is part of a small group enabled to offer the payment initiator feature, together with Banco do Brasil, BTG Pactual, and Itaú Unibanco. The company already offers individual customers the possibility of using the initiator to bring in resources from other institutions. The product for companies, therefore, is the second one.
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