Several companies in Mexico, including Uber Technologies Inc., have shown interest in using a new mobile payment system developed by the Mexican central bank that seeks to promote financial inclusion, the head of the monetary entity said on Friday.
The governor of the Bank of Mexico, Alejandro Diaz de León, said in an interview with Reuters that the bank sought to educate companies on how the program could potentially be used.
The fintech platform, called CoDi, would allow customers to make and receive payments for free through their smartphones.
Uber expressed interest
When asked if Uber, the San Francisco based passenger transport company, was one of the companies that had expressed interest, Díaz de León confirmed it. However, he noted that many potential users were still trying to understand how they could use the fintech CoDi.
“In general, I would say there is a lot of interest in knowing the platform. The idea is to listen to all those potential interested parties and see how we can incorporate the largest possible number of users to the CoDi platform, and they can be of all kinds,” he said.
Uber in Mexico declined to comment on the statements of Díaz de León.
Plans to launch new system with Amazon
Recently, the central bank’s general director of payments told Reuters that they were in talks with online sales giant Amazon to launch the new system and that other firms. Such as their Argentine rival MercadoLibre. It had also approached to discuss how to include fintech CoDi as an additional mode of payments.
Fintech CoDi was one of the focal points of the banking convention in the port of Acapulco, where banks promoted the use of payment systems.
Díaz de León also said that the platform could potentially help companies take advantage of the data to better serve customers.
“We feel that it can be very useful for other companies that have large and very powerful databases,” he said.
Waiting for the broad acceptance
Mexico’s new government, led by leftist president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is betting on financial technology to help lift people out of poverty in a country. Where more than 50 percent of the population, some 42 million people , they do not have bank accounts.
The broad acceptance of fintech CoDi would be an important step in its financial inclusion strategy.
Mobile banking is popular in other emerging markets such as China, India and Kenya, and has been driven by affordable and easy-to-use applications for private companies.
“For us it is very important that in this pilot test phase try to give the most information about what is and how it works and try to identify all the possible uses and potentials of use that it can have for different companies and users, “added Díaz de León.
Aiming to meet the goal of fiscal surplus
On the other hand, the head of the Bank of Mexico considered that it is very important that the goal of fiscal surplus proposed by the government for 2019 is met. After noting that the issue of the reviews of the rating agencies to state oil company Pemex is an important factor of risk that must be attended.
Pemex is under the scrutiny of risk rating agencies that have recently downgraded their debt notes. While the government announced in mid-February that it will inject some 3,900 million dollars to clean up its finances.