If at first you don’t succeed, try again. London-based payments platform Paysafe has unveiled its expansion plans in Argentina with its e-cash solution paysafecard.
The move follows Paysafe’s recent acquisitions of Latin America-based payments companies PagoEfectivo and SafetyPay.
According to Paysafe, paysafecard had previously exited Argentina in 2019 due to regulations “restricting the use of money for payments to international merchants”. The fintech firm reckons new local online regulations now allow paysafecard to take up operations again. It has an existing distribution network, so it’s putting a positive spin on things.
Chirag Patel, President Digital Wallets at Paysafe, comments: “We’re excited to be operating again in Argentina, where e-commerce and online financial services are growing rapidly while the population remains underserved in terms of cards. We see great potential here to help our international merchant partners provide the right payments options for their customers and make more transactions.”
Paysafe’s core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact through payment processing, digital wallet and online cash solutions.
- In Paysafe hands – read about its recent deal with APEXX Global here
It explains that paysafecard is for consumers to shop for goods and services online by purchasing pre-paid vouchers with a 16-digit code in cash and adding the amount to their myPaysafe account. Online payment transactions can then be completed by entering the account’s username and password.
This could be useful to people who don’t have a bank account or credit card, or because “they don’t want to share their bank account details on the internet”. The latter is an unusual choice considering we are living in the 21st century.
Paysafe cites stats from Statista and PPRO, which states that in Argentina around 76% of the population do not have a credit card and around 20% do not have a deposit account. Against this, internet penetration and smartphone penetration is high at 80% and 75% respectively. E-commerce user penetration is expected to grow from 58.6% projected for 2022 to 61.9% in 2025.
Away from action in Argentina, the UK-based fintech firm is doing pretty well.
In June, Paysafe partnered with payments orchestration platform APEXX Global in London to offers its payment processing services to APEXX’s merchant base.
Last year, Paysafe revealed its European aspirations with the completed acquisition of German fintech company viafintech.
With over 20 years of online payment experience, Paysafe had an annualised transactional volume of over $120 billion (£102 billion) in 2021, and has approximately 3,500 employees located in ten countries. Paysafe connects businesses and consumers across 100 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.
