The digitalization of payments is no longer an emerging trend—it has become a new standard that is reshaping the way businesses, merchants, and consumers interact. The question is no longer whether to digitize payments, but how to do it right—with a strategic vision that ensures scalability, security, and long-term value.
The latest Payment Systems Report from the Central Bank of Chile shows a rise to 374 digital payments per person per year—an 18% increase over the previous measurement. Today, 74% of household spending is paid by card, and electronic transfers account for 65% of the total value transacted. In other words: we pay more, we pay differently, and we pay digitally.
This landscape signals a structural transformation that requires companies to view payments as a core part of their product. Payment technology has become a critical driver of competitiveness: the payment experience directly affects conversion rates, average ticket size, customer retention, and even brand perception. Within this context, three factors stand out as essential levers to make smart decisions today and scale sustainably tomorrow: advanced security, technological flexibility, and integration capability.
Advanced Security: Beyond Compliance
Security in digital payments is non-negotiable. According to the Central Bank, more than 127,000 fraud reports were filed in the first half of the year—up 10% from the previous period. Fraud does not just cause direct financial losses; it damages brand reputation, disrupts customer experience, and increases operational costs. A single breach can trigger mass chargebacks, overwhelm customer service, prompt audits, and divert key resources.
Regulation serves as a competitive baseline. Chile’s CMF (Financial Market Commission) General Rule No. 538 (NCG 538) establishes clear standards for authentication, monitoring, and credential protection, pushing the industry toward mechanisms like Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). The removal of coordinate cards—recently postponed for another year—and the requirement of multi-factor authentication is helping to strengthen ecosystem-wide resilience.
Advanced security means going well beyond regulatory compliance: data tokenization, end-to-end encryption, AI-driven anomaly detection, environment segregation, market-specific anti-fraud orchestration, and proven incident recovery plans are becoming the norm. It also requires tracking key metrics like fraud rates, approval rates, and false positives—and integrating them into business intelligence dashboards. In mature markets, a well-designed security strategy is not a barrier, but a competitive advantage that protects revenue, builds customer loyalty, and enhances brand trust.
Technological Flexibility: Letting Customers Pay How They Want
Today’s consumers expect to pay however they prefer—contactless cards, QR code, digital wallet, one-click checkout, or instant transfer. Companies that limit payment methods risk losing conversions. The growing interoperability of electronic transfers, driven by the Central Bank and initiatives like BancoEstado’s TEF-QR, shows the potential to expand beyond card networks. Flexibility means accepting a variety of payment methods and intelligently routing transactions to maximize approval rates and reduce costs.
This also extends across borders: businesses selling outside Chile need local acquiring, pricing in the customer’s currency, and optimized routing to boost approval. In the digital economy, each percentage point gained in approval rates can translate into thousands or even millions in additional revenue.
Integration: End-to-End Efficiency and Visibility
The third lever is integration capability. Sustained payment growth does not happen with siloed systems, but with platforms that connect POS, gateways, fraud engines, ERPs, CRMs, OMSs, and reconciliation/billing systems.
Seamless integration enables automated operations, cost reduction, and a unified view of the business. Stable APIs, real-time webhooks, and enriched transactional events are critical for powering internal systems and enabling data-driven decisions. Integration with new payment “rails” should also be seamless for merchants, allowing them to add new methods in days—not months.
Competing Better, Not Just Faster
These three levers—security, flexibility, and integration—have a direct impact on business performance. Improved security reduces losses and prevents penalties; broader payment acceptance boosts conversions; and robust integration enables operational efficiency and real-time decision-making. In this sense, Chile’s regulatory framework does not hinder innovation—it lays the groundwork for companies with strong practices to gain an edge. The Central Bank promotes interoperability and resilience; the CMF sets authentication and security standards to protect consumers; and institutions like the IDB emphasize the need for clear rules to foster innovation.
The opportunity for Chile’s ecosystem—fintechs, banks, and merchants—is to compete by offering better customer experiences, not shortcuts.
At Evertec, we see several key trends for the coming months: interoperable instant payments at the point of sale, mass adoption of strong customer authentication (SCA), and the consolidation of payments as a strategic data source for personalization and pricing optimization. Businesses that embrace these trends will move ahead. Those that do not will continue to lose sales, margins, and customers to more agile competitors.
In a market where money is now code and the customer is increasingly impatient and demanding, security, flexibility, and integration are no longer just pillars of digital growth, they are the new foundation for competing.
Whoever masters these three dimensions will master their market.
