Payment methods in Colombia

• Colombia is one of Latin America's fastest-growing e-commerce markets, with a 13% annual growth rate and a digitally active population of over 41 million. Cards are the leading payment method, accounting for 36% of online transactions - but the cards Colombian consumers hold are largely locally issued Visa and Mastercard, backed by Colombian banks and tied to local-currency accounts.
• Decline rates for these cards are significantly higher when processed through an international acquirer. For merchants entering Colombia, local card acquiring is the single most important factor in improving authorisation rates and reducing lost revenue at checkout. PPRO provides access to local acquiring infrastructure in Colombia, processing all major card brands on local payment rails.
• Colombia's card market is dominated by Visa and Mastercard - but almost all of the cards in circulation are locally issued by Colombian banks. They carry familiar logos, but they are tied to Colombian peso accounts and subject to local issuing rules that make them behave differently to their international counterparts at the point of authorisation.
• When these cards are processed through an international acquirer, decline rates are noticeably higher. The fix is straightforward: local acquiring. PPRO processes Visa, Mastercard, and Discover on local Colombian payment rails, giving merchants access to the same infrastructure used by domestic acquirers - and the authorisation rates that come with it.

Market data coming soon.