Where's Online Banking Highest in Latin America?
One-third of internet users in the region conduct online banking
August 12, 2015
In Latin America, online banking reaches one-third of the population ages 15 and older, according to comScore.
But penetration varies dramatically from country to country. In Mexico, where reach was lowest, just 15.1% of internet users conducted online banking activities at home or work during April 2015. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, 54.7% did the same. Venezuela was the only country in the region where a majority of internet users were also online bankers.
The largest absolute number of online banking users came from Brazil, which dominated by this metric. Earlier research found that more than half of all banking transactions in Brazil were conducted digitally as of 2014.
Latin America has been among the slowest regions in the world to adopt online banking. Banking executives worldwide surveyed in 2014 by the Economist Intelligence Unit were more likely to say their customers used primarily branches and ATMs for banking in Latin America than any other region—and correspondingly less likely to say they used PCs and mobile devices for this purpose. More than two-thirds of customers primarily used in-person banking services in Latin America, vs. 40% in North America, where a combination of PCs and mobile devices were preferred.