A Data Talks conversation with Estelita Haas, Manager for Product, Markets & Business Intelligence at Ebanx, and Wolfgang Fengler, CEO of World Data Lab.
Key takeaways
Estelita Haas started her career as a journalist, drawn to “the stories that no one is telling”, often reporting from the outlying regions of Brazil, far from the economic centers. When she moved into payments at Ebanx seven years ago, she found the same pull: an overlooked story hiding in plain sight.
“Payments are basically the invisible structure behind how people make decisions,” she explained. “At the end, I really see that payments are about people, how they choose to pay, their needs, their ability to access what they want.”
Ebanx is a payments company founded in Curitiba, southern Brazil, in 2012. It now operates in 25 emerging markets across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, connecting global companies with local consumers.
The problem it solves is straightforward. A global business with a card-first checkout simply can’t reach most buyers in these markets, because most of them don’t own a credit card. When a would-be customer reaches the checkout and doesn’t see their preferred card brand, digital wallet, mobile money, or instant payment option, the sale stalls, even when they want to buy.
Ebanx’s founding product illustrates how far the region has traveled. In 2012, it offered a single payment method: boleto, a printable cash voucher with a barcode that Brazilians pay at an ATM or through mobile banking. Fourteen years later, Brazil runs on Pix.
Pix is Brazil’s instant payment system, launched by the central bank in November 2020. In under five years, it reached roughly 95% penetration among Brazilian adults, going from zero to near-universal adoption in a country of 200 million people.
That figure is Estelita’s favorite number, and for good reason: no payment rail in the industry has scaled that fast. Pix is now used for nearly everything, from online shopping to paying bills, and it demonstrates what happens “when you design from where the customer really wants, what they have and what they need.”
Consumers buying online in these markets are typically young, middle- to lower-income, and mobile-first, often transacting online for the first time. The categories growing fastest around that consumer include:
Each of these demands greater payment flexibility, and each behaves differently by region.
According to World Data Lab, digital commerce in emerging markets is set to roughly double over the next decade, compared with about 50% growth in developed markets, meaning it grows at roughly twice the rate. Together, these markets are expected to add about 1 billion new consumers.
This is the “Digital South” thesis: while much of the digital economy is headquartered in the north, the next wave of digital consumers, and increasingly, South-to-South commerce, sits in emerging markets. Ebanx positions itself as the payments layer for that shift.
Estelita sees the most compelling innovation coming from emerging markets, moving in two directions.
1. Instant payment rails are outgrowing their original scope. Pix launched for one-time transfers; it now supports recurring payments through Pix Automático, with installment options emerging. India’s UPI, the inspiration for Pix, has followed the same path into recurring rails.
2. Payment methods once seen as competitors are converging. A few examples:
The through-line: the pie is bigger than anyone assumed. “There is really space for everyone,” Estelita said. Each method serves a different use case and consumer segment, and they increasingly feed off one another into a hybrid environment.
Because a single consumer behaves differently depending on the purchase. Estelita described her own habits: boleto for monthly bills (the printed voucher doubles as a reminder), a credit card for a streaming subscription, and Pix for online purchases she wants confirmed instantly. Even the tools are blending: a Pix QR code now sits inside the boleto itself.
For merchants, this means the old question, “how many exclusive users does this payment method have?” usually has no clean answer. The reality is payment diversity within each consumer, and winning them means offering the full mix.
Ebanx is a Brazilian payments company founded in 2012 that connects global businesses with consumers in 25 emerging markets across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
Most consumers in these markets don’t have a credit card, so a checkout that only accepts cards can’t reach the majority of potential buyers. Offering local payment methods is what unlocks trust and converts sales.
World Data Lab projects digital commerce in emerging markets will roughly double over the next decade, about twice the rate of developed markets, adding around 1 billion new consumers.
Largely from emerging markets, where instant rails like Pix and UPI are expanding into recurring and installment payments, and where previously competing methods (cards, wallets, mobile money, instant rails) are converging.
This article is based on an episode of Data Talks, World Data Lab’s podcast on the people behind the numbers.