On Monday, June 11 -- For years, the numbers describing Mexico's cash problem have been staggering enough that the fintech industry has treated the country less like a market and more like an undetonated opportunity. Eighty-five percent of purchases under 500 pesos are still made in cash, and only 20 percent of micro-businesses have access to a bank account, according to Mexico's 2024 National Financial Inclusion Survey. The country's answer to Black Friday - a nationwide shopping event called Buen Fin - still runs largely on physical currency. The digital payments industry has been making bets on Mexico for years, mostly small ones, mostly without cracking the structural cash dependency at scale.

a simultaneous push at consumers, small ...