the Globe News/
The confinement measures due to covid-19 pushed the world to migrate online. From the telecommuting to shopping, and, therefore, payments, are increasingly concentrated on the internet.
However, for Latin American countries, citizens with technological skills, a connection to the web and a bank account live in a much more agile and comfortable world than those who are lagging behind, those who head the central banks in Mexico and Brazil agreed, in a discussion moderated by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Governor of the Bank of Mexico Alexander Diaz de Leon and the president of the Central Bank of Brazil, Roberto Campos Net, discussed the technological force that is currently sweeping the region in terms of payments and financial transfers.
The Mexican stressed that, while the trend in the world of finance is to offer digital services and products that are increasingly easy to use, significant financial exclusion persists in the country.
"The pandemic has deepened the digital divide," the economist pointed out, "financial inclusion has gone from being an opportunity to an imperative for our countries, and central banks have many roles in this, such as regulators, operators, developers and catalysts." During the pandemic, electronic transfers of less than 400 dollars increased by 9%, assured the governor of the Bank of Mexico, reaching 885 million transactions. "This shows us that, especially during the pandemic, these types of payments are critical."
Mexico launched in September 2019 a free mobile application to make payments quickly and safely called CoDi. However, only eight million users have registered, reported Díaz de León.
Central banks of Uruguay, Bahamas and the Central Bank of the Eastern Caribbean are already testing their own cryptocurrencies in a section of the population, assured the moderator of the event Alexandre Tombini, representative of the office for the Americas of the BIS, and the topic is one that It already occupies most of the central banks in the world.
A cryptocurrency is a digital asset that can be exchanged securely through a secret language or cryptography and in countries like Argentina and Venezuela is emerging as an accessible investment and alternative to local currency investments, as it is not susceptible to inflation in the country. Source: El País newspaper
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