Driven by fintech expansion and rising remittance volumes, the region captured a larger slice of a growing global market.

Market Share Shift: 4.2% to 4.6%

Latin America’s share of global cross-border payment revenue rose from 4.2% in 2020 to 4.6% in 2024, according to industry estimates. While the absolute increase of 0.4 percentage points appears modest, it represents a meaningful gain in a market that reached $34.6 billion across the region in 2024 alone, per Grand View Research data. The shift underscores Latin America’s growing integration into global payments flows, driven by accelerated digital adoption and surging remittance volumes.

The revenue share increase occurred against a backdrop of global cross-border payment volumes expanding steadily as e-commerce, B2B trade, and person-to-person transfers recovered and grew following the pandemic-era slowdown. Latin America captured a disproportionate share of this growth, reflecting both the maturation of its domestic digital payments infrastructure and the increasing formalization of cross-border money movement.

Share (%) (%)Source: Orionmano Industries

Digital Adoption and Fintech Growth

The primary driver behind the share increase has been the region’s rapid embrace of digital payment methods. Digital wallets and account-to-account (A2A) payments now represent 46% of Latin American e-commerce turnover in 2024, a sharp increase from approximately 21% in 2023, according to Thunes. This near-doubling in adoption reflects the displacement of cash-on-delivery and traditional card-based payments by mobile-first alternatives.

Leading the digital wallet charge are regional fintech giants Mercado Pago, Nubank, and Rappi Pay, each of which has achieved widespread merchant acceptance and consumer adoption across multiple markets. In Argentina, Mercado Pago’s QR payment system has become near-ubiquitous, supported by the central bank’s Transferencias 3.0 infrastructure, which reached 62.6 million transactions in December 2024 alone. These domestic digital rails are increasingly being adapted for cross-border use, lowering friction for international transactions.

Smartphone penetration, a prerequisite for digital wallet adoption, is expected to reach 81% across the region by 2025, up from 72% in 2020, per J.P. Morgan projections. This expanding mobile footprint creates a larger addressable user base for fintechs offering cross-border payment services, particularly among previously unbanked populations.

Remittances and Cross-Border Commerce

Remittance flows into Latin America exceeded $156 billion in 2023, with the US-Mexico corridor alone accounting for more than $66 billion, according to Thunes data. These flows represent a critical economic lifeline and a significant source of cross-border payment volume. The United States remains the dominant sending market, but intra-regional corridors—particularly within Central America and between South American nations—are growing as migration patterns shift and economic linkages deepen.

Business-to-business (B2B) payments constituted the largest segment of Latin America’s cross-border payments market in 2024, per Grand View Research. This reflects the region’s role as both a manufacturing hub and a consumer market for imported goods. B2B cross-border payment revenue in the region is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 7.3% through 2030, reaching $52.7 billion in total market size. The B2C and C2B segments, while smaller in aggregate, are growing faster as e-commerce cross-border purchases increase and digital service platforms expand their Latin American user bases.

Challenges: Costs and Regulation

Despite the growth, persistent structural barriers temper the pace of expansion. The average cost for sending a $200 remittance to Latin America stood at 6.4% in 2024, according to the Financial Stability Board’s annual progress report. This figure is more than double the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of 3% and has actually increased slightly from 2023 levels, when the average cost was 6.3%. The cost penalty disproportionately affects smaller-value transfers and corridors with lower competition.

Regulatory fragmentation remains a significant impediment. Across the region’s 33 countries, anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, foreign exchange controls, and licensing regimes vary widely. Currency volatility—particularly pronounced in Argentina, Venezuela, and increasingly in Brazil—adds another layer of complexity for payment providers managing settlement and hedging. The FSB report notes that while some regions have made progress on reducing B2B and P2B costs, Latin America and the Caribbean corridors consistently rank among the most expensive globally.

Outlook: Continued Growth but Structural Hurdles

Latin America’s cross-border payments market is projected to reach $52.7 billion by 2030, growing at a 7.3% CAGR from 2024, per Grand View Research. This growth trajectory assumes continued expansion in digital adoption, remittance volumes, and regional trade integration.

Real-time payment systems offer a promising path forward. Pix in Brazil, Transferencias 3.0 in Argentina, and similar schemes in Mexico and Colombia are building infrastructure that can eventually support faster, cheaper cross-border settlement. Stablecoin adoption is also emerging as a workaround for currency volatility and slow correspondent banking—though regulatory clarity remains uneven. The FSB and BIS are coordinating efforts to standardize cross-border payment rails, including through the G20 cross-border payments program, which could reduce fragmentation over time.

The outlook is one of measured optimism. Latin America’s payments growth is real and accelerating, but structural costs and regulatory divergence will keep the region’s share of global revenue below its demographic and economic potential in the near term.