Costos del comercio en el procesamiento de los pagos en Colombia

Abstract

Although Colombia has made significant progress in access to transactional products offered by the financial system, cash is still the preferred payment method as there is low acceptance of electronic payments by merchants. This article presents the results of a survey conducted by Banco de la República in 2018, which measures merchants´ private costs of accepting and using different payment instruments. The estimates show that cash is less expensive than debit and credit cards when merchants receive payments. This cost structure is replicated for payments that merchants make for their operating expenses, for which the costs of making electronic payments more than double those of cash payments. Altogether, for merchants, operating with cash results much cheaper than with electronic payment instruments.