Drivers of Digital Payment Adoption: Lessons from Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico

Resumen

Digital payment platforms can displace cash and extend financial services to underserved populations, yet many adults worldwide  emain unbanked. Leveraging granular microdata on individual transactions and user characteristics, we argue that broad cash substitution via peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms depends on a “rapid low incomegradient”— the speed at which adoption spreads from  affluent early users to lowerincome groups. In three Latin American cases—Brazil’s Pix, Costa Rica’s Sinpe M´ovil, and Mexico’s CoDi—we document that low adoption costs, strong network effects, coordinated supply-side integration, and early awareness  efforts enabled Pix and Sinpe M´ovil to reach nearly all income segments within five years, whereas CoDi remains characterized by low usage and predominately high-income adopters.

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