Why Latin American e-wallets are booming and what this reveals about the entire global tech industry

From the Industrial Revolution to artificial intelligence, from the telegraph to smartphones, the history of technology follows a familiar pattern: wealthy, developed countries produce; emerging markets consume. This logic, however, has been increasingly challenged, and the sector where this shift is advancing by leaps and bounds is digital payments. And here, Latin America stands out, with a financial system that is undergoing a revolution led by Latin Americans themselves.

E-wallets perfectly illustrate this transformation because they've become more than payment methods; they've evolved into ecosystems developed to meet the specific demands and needs of local populations. No matter how technological, disruptive, and innovative foreign products might be, they were not developed from an understanding of the cultural, economic, and social nuances that shaped the continent's financial habits. As my grandmother used to say, nobody knows better than you where the shoe pinches. Nobody understands Latin Americans' problems and can propose solutions better than Latin Americans.

And that's exactly what we did. The pressure to solve real challenges — such as low banking penetration, financial exclusion, limited access to credit cards, lack of interoperability, and acceptance barriers for traditional (and international) payment methods — planted the seeds for fintech and digital banks. They quickly realized that not having legacy systems and complex infrastructure, like developed countries do, could finally be an advantage. Leapfrogging stages and betting on cutting-edge, scalable technology from the get-go was the simplest and most effective path. That's why they focused on mobile technology — after all, 81% of Latin America's population owns a smartphone, according to GSMA, with projections reaching 93% by 2030.

The idea was simple: transform the device that is already part of people's daily lives into a true digital wallet. Unlike global alternatives, which are mostly used just for purchases, Latin American wallets were created to offer more than traditional banking provides, including low-cost accounts, instant payments, recurring transactions, installment options, loyalty programs, loans, savings, interoperability capabilities, integration with other systems, and yes, credit cards. Creating an open ecosystem from this new e-wallet concept has made money circulate more quickly and efficiently. Services that were previously limited to clients of traditional institutions are now within everyone's reach. Where I come from, this has a name: financial inclusion.

Mass adoption

Mercado Pago is a practical lesson in all the theories I presented in the previous paragraphs. With 64 million active users in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil, the e-wallet created by Argentina's Mercado Libre will continue growing at a 21% annual rate through 2027, according to Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence (PCMI) data analyzed by EBANX. In its home country, Mercado Pago helped make e-wallets the most-used online payment method, with 46% of Argentina's market share, ahead of credit cards (35%) and debit cards (11%), according to PCMI data featured in EBANX's study Beyond Borders 2025. In digital commerce transaction values, it represents USD 15.2 billion.

In Peru, 72% of the adult population already uses the Yape e-wallet, which was launched nine years ago as a simple P2P transfer application and has become a true "super-app" that combines credit functionality, recurring payment capabilities, and marketplace features. The convenience caught on with Peruvians, and mass adoption of digital wallets led this type of financial product, driven by Yape, to grow an impressive 88% in transaction volume and 102% in processed transactions in 2024, according to the Central Bank of Peru.

Impact on digital commerce

E-wallets are a passport for Latin Americans to access products and services from global companies, which is why they're also considered a powerful growth lever for businesses. A great example of this impact comes from Colombia, where the mobile transactions platform Nequi is used by 24 million consumers and is projected to grow 24% annually through 2027, per PCMI data sourced by EBANX. Internal EBANX data has revealed that merchants offering the payment method registered an average monthly increase of 33% in transaction volume with Nequi over five months. Since the mobile platform launched eight years ago, Colombia's e-commerce has expanded ninefold — and is expected to grow 18% annually through 2027, according to PCMI data obtained by EBANX.

In Brazil, NuPay, a digital payment solution developed by Nubank, is also driving the growth of online businesses. With direct checkout integration, chargeback-free transactions, and the option to pay in up to 24 installments — a common cultural practice in Brazil — , it has become the e-wallet with the largest number of users in Latin America, serving Nubank’s over 100 million clients. The opportunity didn't go unnoticed by a travel company and EBANX merchant that started offering NuPay as a payment option. In six months, their average daily revenue in the region increased by 47%. Just over a year later, NuPay had already become the most-used method by their customers, representing 80% of their Latin American revenue.

We are seeing this impact across all sectors, beyond retail and travel. E-wallets’ features like recurring payments, for example, have enabled Latin Americans who don't own credit cards to become consumers of streaming platforms, gaming, software as a service (SaaS), and many other digital products.

The lesson for the tech industry

There's no such thing as an opportunity vacuum. If a real challenge isn't being addressed, someone will show up to solve it and, of course, profit from it. Latin American e-wallets prove that innovation doesn't necessarily need to come from major global tech hubs to be transformative and scalable. On the contrary, often, it's precisely the distance from these markets that allows us to see opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed.

That's why this quiet revolution in digital payments needs to be closely observed by the entire tech industry. Emerging market sectors that have historically been marked by exclusion or inefficiency can and should benefit from solutions created by those who understand these challenges firsthand. And the possibilities offered by new technologies make this scenario more feasible. Latin America's protagonism in payments is a preview of what the future of technology looks like: decentralized, connected to local realities, and therefore more inclusive and powerful.