Eduardo Santos, former head of public policy for Latin America and the Caribbean at Mastercard: “In Latin America, as in the rest of the world, consumers, merchants and other stakeholders are seeing the enormous advantages of replacing cash. These include speed, reliability, convenience and security, to name a few. Some countries in Latin America have and had payment system models that preserved historical alliances and thwarted growth in electronic payments, and we are seeing these replaced systematically through market forces and enlightened legislation and regulation. Merchants are also coming to the realization of the hidden costs associated with cash, heretofore misidentified as ‘costs of doing business.’ Remembering that, in developing countries as well as in the developed world, more and more electronic payment schemes include person-to-person (‘P2P’) payments, the conversion away from cash benefits informal workers enormously, both in the potential growth of the available market, and in…”