Latin American e-commerce retailer and fintech firm MercadoLibre (MELI.O) is in talks with Meta (META.O) to process payments for its WhatsApp messaging service starting in Brazil, the company's chief financial officer told Reuters on Wednesday. Facebook owner Meta said last month that it will launch a payments tool in Latin America's largest economy, allowing WhatsApp users to message and buy from a business directly in the chat. “We are in the test phase as one of the partners that processes payments in Brazil,” Pedro Arnt told Reuters in an interview.
The payments tool in Brazil would allow WhatsApp users to find a company's account through a directory service and make in-app transactions with credit or debit cards. “This could be an opportunity for us to leverage WhatsApp efficiently to generate more sales and better customer contacts,” Arnt added. Mercado Pago was among several companies named by WhatsApp last month as having the necessary technical integration, “many of which” were also participating in production testing.
MercadoLibre last month posted better-than-expected profit for the third quarter on record net revenue of $2.7 billion, with 88 million unique active users in 18 countries. “We have a very strong relationship with our consumers because we can solve both their financial needs and their commerce needs. That puts us in a very strong position,” Arnt said.
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