Latin American payment giant rises amid pandemic, with an eye on China's Ant

By Cassandra Garrison
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Latin America's top e-commerce firm is revving up its digital payments engine as shops shift online amid the coronavirus pandemic, and is looking toward China for inspiration to bring the region's un-banked and cash-loving savers online.
Transactions on the platform of Mercado Pago, the finance arm of MercadoLibre <MELI.O>, more than doubled in the second quarter, and its CEO sees China's Alibaba <9988.HK> and its huge payment affiliate, Ant Group, as a model to follow.
"Many of the things we did were inspired by how they have worked in China," Osvaldo Gimenez, Mercado Pago's chief executive, told Reuters, adding the unit also had close ties with Tencent Holdings Ltd <0700.HK>, India's Paytm and U.S. firm PayPal Holdings Inc <PYPL.O>, which invested $750 million in MercadoLibre last year.
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