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Payment in Chile: Unmet Needs & Pains Report (2025)

Payment in Chile Current Pains Analysis

Chile’s payment ecosystem has progressed rapidly toward digitisation, yet both individual consumers (B2C) and businesses (B2B) still experience a series of structural and operational pains. Based on the four analysis blocks, the principal frictions map to six overarching categories:

  1. Security & Trust
    • Rising phishing, account-takeover and card-not-present fraud undermine consumer confidence.
    • Small merchants lack affordable, advanced fraud-prevention tools.

  2. Cost & Cash-flow Management
    • Although interchange caps lowered the merchant discount rate (MDR), total acceptance costs (hardware, software, compliance) remain high for SMEs and micro-merchants.
    • Many merchants still wait T+2-T+3 days for settlement, causing working-capital strain.

  3. Interoperability & User Experience
    • Multiple, non-standard QR schemes and proprietary wallets create fragmented checkout experiences.
    • Limited API readiness at smaller banks slows integration with Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs) and other open-finance solutions.

  4. Regulatory Complexity
    • The Fintech Law’s extensive secondary regulations demand new reporting, API, and security requirements; compliance overhead is particularly heavy for early-stage fintechs and SMEs.
    • Continuous rule updates (e.g., interchange caps, open-finance deadlines) create planning uncertainty.

  5. Financial Inclusion & Digital Literacy
    • 96 % of adults hold at least one financial product, yet pockets of the rural, elderly and under-banked population still rely on cash and have low digital skills.
    • Migrants and gig-economy workers face onboarding hurdles, KYC frictions and documentation gaps.

  6. Cross-Border & Dispute Processes
    • SMEs selling abroad struggle with FX spreads, chargeback arbitration backlog, and differing compliance regimes.
    • Consumers often experience slow, opaque dispute-resolution processes for e-commerce purchases.

Unmet Needs and Pains

Despite Chile’s advanced payments landscape, customers articulate a clear set of unmet needs that, if addressed, would unlock the next wave of efficiency, trust and inclusion. Each need is linked to concrete pains, root causes and opportunity spaces for industry stakeholders.

1. Seamless, Standardised Acceptance

Unmet need
• One QR code or tap that works everywhere, regardless of issuer, wallet or acquirer.

Pains observed
• Fragmented QR standards; merchants must display several codes.
• Consumers are uncertain which app to open; checkout friction reduces conversion.

Root causes
• Lack of nationwide technical standard; market-share battles among incumbent and fintech wallets.

Opportunity
• Industry-wide open-loop QR (similar to Brazil’s Pix Copy&Pay) or NFC tokenisation standard backed by the Central Bank and CMF.

2. Real-Time, Low-Cost Settlement for Merchants

Unmet need
• Immediate (or near-real-time) access to funds at predictable, transparent pricing.

Pains observed
• T+2 settlement delay limits inventory rotation and payroll management for SMEs.
• Hidden fees (batch, statement, compliance) erode margins even after MDR cap.

Root causes
• Legacy clearing windows; acquirers and processors monetise float; slower adoption of fast-payments rails for card settlement.

Opportunity
• Overlay fast-payment rail (e.g., COMBANC 24/7) to acquiring settlement; fintech pay-out solutions that guarantee same-day funding.

3. Robust, Affordable Fraud-Mitigation Tools

Unmet need
• Merchant-grade, AI-driven fraud prevention and consumer-grade identity controls that are easy to deploy and priced for small volumes.

Pains observed
• SMEs forced to choose between high fraud or high fraud-tool costs.
• Consumers worry about phishing; limited mass-market education.

Root causes
• Concentration of enterprise-level fraud solutions; fragmented public-private coordination on cyber education.

Opportunity
• SaaS fraud-management platforms with tiered pricing; government-fintech awareness campaigns; biometric-based authentication mandated via 3-DS 2.x.

4. Transparent, Predictable Pricing & Compliance

Unmet need
• Clarity on total cost of acceptance and a simplified path to regulatory compliance.

Pains observed
• SMEs receive complex MDR statements; hidden cross-border or scheme fees surface later.
• Fintechs spend disproportionate resources deciphering evolving Fintech-Law rules.

Root causes
• Persisting interchange-plus-plus fee structures; rapid issuance of secondary norms without consolidated guidance.

Opportunity
• Template-driven, all-in MDR offers; regulatory sandboxes and one-stop compliance portals for fintechs.

5. Inclusive Digital On-Boarding & Education

Unmet need
• Frictionless KYC for migrants, gig-workers and rural users combined with ongoing digital-literacy support.

Pains observed
• Document verification fails for foreign IDs; rural agents scarce; low awareness of wallet safety practices.

Root causes
• Outdated identification databases; limited agent networks outside major cities; language and UX barriers.

Opportunity
• e-ID initiatives; biometrics-only onboarding; agent-assisted KYC kiosks; targeted education via popular social platforms.

6. Efficient Cross-Border & Dispute Resolution

Unmet need
• Fast, low-FX-spread international payments and transparent, swift dispute processes.

Pains observed
• FX spreads of 2 – 5 % for SME exporters; 60-day average chargeback resolution; limited consumer visibility into case status.

Root causes
• Limited adoption of multi-currency routing; manual, issuer-centric arbitration queues.

Opportunity
• Local-currency wallets with auto-FX at interbank rates; rule-based, track-and-trace dispute APIs integrated across issuers, acquirers and merchants.

Key Findings

# Unmet Need Primary Customer(s) Key Pain Indicators Current Gap Potential Solution Space
1 Seamless, standardised acceptance B2C, SMEs Multi-QR confusion, wallet fragmentation No unified QR/NFC standard National open-loop QR or NFC token programme
2 Real-time merchant settlement SMEs, micro-merchants T+2 funding delay, hidden fees Legacy clearing cycles Fast-payments-based acquiring settlement
3 Affordable fraud mitigation SMEs, consumers Rising CNP fraud, costly tools Enterprise solutions dominate Tiered SaaS fraud tools; biometric 3-DS
4 Transparent pricing & compliance SMEs, fintechs Complex MDR bills; high legal costs Non-transparent fee stacks; regulatory churn All-in MDR offers; compliance portals
5 Inclusive digital onboarding Rural users, migrants KYC failure, low literacy Rigid ID checks; sparse agent points e-ID, biometrics, agent-assisted kiosks
6 Efficient cross-border & disputes SME exporters, online shoppers High FX spreads; 60-day disputes Manual cross-border & chargeback flows Multi-currency wallets; dispute-resolution APIs

References

  1. Banco Central de Chile. Payment systems. https://www.bcentral.cl/web/bch/areas-de-accion/mercado-financiero/sistemas-de-pago
  2. PCMI. Chile 2024: Digital Payments and Ecommerce Insights. https://paymentscardsandmobile.com/chile-2024-digital-payments-and-ecommerce-insights/
  3. IMF eLibrary. Fintech and Financial Inclusion in Chile. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2024/02/05/Fintech-and-Financial-Inclusion-in-Chile-in-544502
  4. CMF Chile. Regulations on Financial Services Providers in the Fintech Act. https://www.cmfchile.cl/
  5. World Bank. Case Study: Chile – Fast Payments Toolkit. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/2d52795c371322b0682303079c79344b-0320022021/original/Chile-Fast-Payments-Toolkit-Case-Study.pdf
  6. GlobalData. Chile Cards and Payments – Opportunities and Risks to 2028. https://www.globaldata.com/store/report/chile-cards-and-payments-market-analysis/
  7. Finnovista. What You Need to Know About Chile's Fast-Maturing Fintech Market. https://blog.finnovista.com/en/what-you-need-to-know-about-chiles-fast-maturing-fintech-market
  8. APEXX Global. Payment Gateway Chile. https://apexx.global/payment-gateways/latam/chile/
  9. VIXIO Regulatory Intelligence. Chile Gives Green Light to Cross-Border Card Acquiring. https://vixio.com/news/payments/chile-gives-green-light-to-cross-border-card-acquiring
  10. Banco Central de Chile. BOX III.1 – Setting Final Limits to Card’s Interchange Fees. https://www.bcentral.cl/documents/33528/3029570/IEF_II_2023_BOX_III_1.pdf