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We would like to thank
for renewing its Membership with the MexCC.
We look forward on bringing continuous support and celebrating many years more.
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Embracing Uncertainty
“Change brings opportunity”, or so the saying goes. If we believe this to be true, and I personally do, then Brexit is the most exciting opportunity of the decade for British companies. Especially for those companies operating in the payments ecosystem where opportunities in emerging markets are untapped and markets are ripe. Innovative, leading-edge PayTech companies are poised to be able to take advantage of these opportunities if they are just willing to embrace change and see new perspectives.
Let’s take Mexico for example. It’s the 11th largest economy in the world and is macro-economically stable. It has a population of 120 million, 80 million of whom are adults with smartphones (75 million smartphones). Despite this, 60 million are unbanked or underserved by formal financial services. As adults are becoming increasingly digitally savvy, they are demanding peer-to-peer payments, smartphone bank account openings, etc.
I did not want to miss out on this opportunity, so 6 months ago I incorporated a Mexican subsidiary into my UK-based company: New Finance LTD. Our solution, Tander, is an app that allows users to micro-save and obtain immediate micro-loans. It is the perfect mobile solution for banks to engage with segments of the population that were out of their reach previously. We are now in beta tests with the largest Microfinance bank in Latin America, Compartamos Banco, and with Transfer, the largest mobile payments operator in the country…in a space of just 6 months!
Any FinTech or PayTech company should dive into these types of opportunities and the moment to do it is now.
This is why the Emerging Payments Association decided to create “Project International Trade”. A project which I am proud to support and be a part of.
The Emerging Payments Association’s Project International Trade promotes trade and investment between the UK and non-EU countries. It forms trade links between UK payments companies and political institutions and financial services organisations in Mexico, Canada, USA, China CEE and India
It also encourages members to use those links to export more and secure more investment in UK PayTech companies...
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Aljazeera
Oaxaca's revolutionary street art
27 March 2017.
Oaxaca, Mexico - This past October at Espacia Zapata, a print shop on a colourful city street in Oaxaca, Mexico, a group of artists from the art collective Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) gathered, surrounded by large hand-cranked presses and stacks of ink covered printing screens.
That night they took to the streets, illegally pasting politically charged screen prints on the walls of Oaxaca City, one of Mexico's premier tourist destinations, a UNESCO world heritage site and - for the past 10 years - the centre of a burgeoning political street art movement that has arisen from the political turmoil in the southern state.
"The simple act of sticking something out on the street means now you are a criminal," said Ivan Michel, one of the artists.
"Our art counters and is subversive. [It is] social and, in some cases, it's political," added Mario Guzman, another ASARO artist, speaking about the collective's mission to provide alternative commentary to the state-driven narrative which permeates Oaxacan...
For complete article click here
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Bloomberg
BuzzFeed News Expands to Mexico, Germany in Push for New Readers
30 March 2017.
BuzzFeed News is expanding into Mexico and Germany as the digital publisher seeks new readers overseas and prepares to cover national elections in both countries.
BuzzFeed Germany and BuzzFeed Mexico will hire journalists in those countries to cover local issues and write in their native languages, with some stories being translated into English, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith said in an interview.
Many online media companies, including the Huffington Post, Business Insider and Vox Media, are expanding internationally in a quest for online readers and advertising. The New York Times unveiled a Spanish-language digital edition last year to attract more online readers outside the U.S.
Smith sees opportunities for both newsrooms to collaborate with the company’s U.S.-based reporters on stories of global significance. BuzzFeed Inc. already attracts large audiences in Mexico and Germany for entertainment content, and has a handful of employees in both countries...
For complete article click here
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Financial Times
Gael García Bernal: the Mexican star talks Trump and new film ‘Neruda’
31 March 2017
For the past three years Gael García Bernal has been a TV star — less time than he has been a film star, familiar from the likes of Y Tu Mamá También and The Motorcycle Diaries. It’s been a tangent the actor has enjoyed. The vehicle has been the funky comedy Mozart in the Jungle, the role Rodrigo De Souza, conductor of the fictional New York Symphony.
Recently, the show was renewed for a fourth season by Amazon Studios, which should be a cause for celebration. García Bernal, however, has mixed feelings about the job requiring him to spend a lot of time in the US. “At this moment I have to say that I want to be there for as little time as possible,” he says, given what he calls the “mindset” of the country right now. “They are very racist in the US. Yes. Openly. It’s still there.”
The world in 2017 is, of course, filled with movie stars pronouncing on American politics. But with García Bernal, the context is a little different. Not only has he long been politically active, he is also Mexican, and still mostly based in the country of his birth. “Mexico”, he says, “is filled now with kids who know the American president called their parents rapists.” He tells a story about Mexican friends living in the US, whose six-year-old daughter told them she knew how to make friends at school — she would no longer speak Spanish.
For complete article click here
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Financial Times
Mexican peso logs biggest quarterly gain since 1977
31 March 2017.
Talk about going from zero to hero.
The Mexican peso notched its largest quarterly gain in four decades as the currency staged what is probably one of this year’s most dramatic and improbable comebacks following its nosedive in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory.
The peso is the world’s best performing major currency during the first quarter, clocking in a 10.8 per cent gain against the US dollar during the period. The advance makes this the peso’s best quarter since 1977.
Having been pummelled by Mr Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, attacks on Nafta and promise to build a wall on the US-Mexican border, the peso has mounted a steady recovery since the president’s January 20 inauguration amid more conciliatory comments from the White House.
Investor doubts about Mr Trump’s ability to deliver on his policies intensified last week after he failed to rally enough support for his healthcare bill. Meanwhile, a $20bn foreign exchange hedging programme announced by...
For complete article click here
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Excelsior
Buscando una asociación profunda y especial con la Unión Europea
3 April 2017.
El pasado 29 de marzo, la primera ministra Theresa May informó al presidente del Consejo Europeo de la decisión de Reino Unido de activar el Artículo 50 y así iniciar el proceso para dejar la Unión Europea (UE). Este proceso tomará dos años y concluirá el 29 de marzo de 2019.
El referéndum de junio pasado manifestó una decisión trascendental. Más allá de dejar la Unión Europea, este fue un voto por el cambio: para hacer de Reino Unido un país más fuerte y justo. Sin embargo, dejar la UE no significa abandonar Europa, ya que Reino Unido continuará siendo un socio confiable, aliado dispuesto y amigo cercano con los demás países europeos. Reino Unido buscará tener una asociación nueva e igualitaria entre una Gran Bretaña independiente y autogobernada, y nuestros amigos y aliados en la Unión Europea. Está en nuestro máximo interés que la UE siga teniendo éxito después de nuestra salida.
El proceso de salida implicará la abrogación de la Ley de las...
For complete article click here
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Bloomberg
Silicon Valley's Spooked by Trump and Mexico Sees an Opportunity
3 April 2017.
There’s a tech-loving governor in Mexico who sees opportunity in the hassles the Trump administration might create for companies eager to hire foreign engineers and coders: He’ll find cubicles for them.
Aristoteles Sandoval has been making his pitch to Silicon Valley, selling what he considers the world’s second-best technology nerve center to the likes of Facebook Inc. and Tesla Inc.If you can’t import the talent you need, Sandoval has been telling them, there’s a way around the problem in Guadalajara. After all, most of the big companies have research centers, factories or satellite offices in the picturesque city. Why not park your non-American workers a four-hour flight from San Francisco?
“We’ll take you,” Sandoval, 43, said, sleeves rolled up and hair slicked back as he sat at his desk in Casa Jalisco, the official residence of the governor of Jalisco state. “We’re tolerant and inclusive and think talent has no borders. Brilliant minds will always have a place here.”
That could, and should, be interpreted as a dig at U.S. President Donald Trump, who has galvanized the industry with orders to ban immigration from some mostly Muslim countries and freeze the expedited processing of H-1B visas for specially skilled workers...
For complete article click here
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Financial Times
Windfall from weak peso could help Mexico avoid downgrade
3 April 2017.
A reason for Mexico to give thanks for Donald Trump.
The peso’s massive depreciation after the US presidential election boosted the central bank’s profits so much that it will be easier for the government to hold on to its credit rating, Moody’s suggests.
Moody’s currently rates Mexico’s sovereign debt at A3 with a negative outlook, and has previously warned it faces a 50-50 chance of being downgraded.
Even before President Trump’s victory, the ratings agency had warned that an economic slowdown could weigh on the government’s fiscal consolidation efforts and lead to a downgrade. However, the subsequent drop in the peso has provided a boost to government coffers that Moody’s says could help offset some of the impact of slower growth.
Banxico last week announced that it has given the government MXN321.7bn ($17.2bn), after the peso’s weakness helped it to an extraordinary profit of MXN535.3bn last year. (Since then, the peso has picked up.)...
For complete article click here
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Reuters
Still weak Mexican peso prompts bets on tourism
3 April 2017.
Mexican airports and tourism operators are fast becoming a hotspot for investors betting they will escape the trade-related worries that have squeezed some other assets there, with lingering weakness in the peso seen providing further upside.
While the Mexican currency has gained some 17 percent against the dollar since the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president in January, fund managers say the currency is still undervalued even as it moves below 19 pesos per dollar.
That means that Mexico - long a reasonably priced destination for Americans - remains cheap, potentially further boosting a strong inflow of tourists.
The number of international tourists in Mexico climbed 9 percent to 35 million in 2016, a year in which the dollar gained around 20 percent against the peso, according to Mexican Tourism Ministry figures.
A January OECD report linked the growth to "sharp depreciation of the Mexican peso," which had "improved the price competitiveness...
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Financial Times
A home for literature in Mexico
3 April 2017.
Mexico City’s literary history straddles reality and fiction. The most densely populated city in Latin America has attracted international writers, many weaving real stories between the lines of their novels.
Plaza Luis Cabrera, La Roma
In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Mexico City is a road trip's final stop: illness and deserted travelling companions mean narrator Sal Paradise must head home. Kerouac visited William S Burroughs, an icon of the Beat Generation, in the city’s La Roma neighbourhood in the early 1950s, where he allegedly wrote the poem ‘Mexico City Blues’. In La Roma, stroll down Plaza Luis Cabrera, where the two writers went on some of their famous intoxicated romps.
Café La Habana
More recently, Roberto Bolaño, the Chilean novelist, celebrated the avant-garde literary scene of Mexico City in his 1998 book The Savage Detectives. It focuses on a group of South American poets, the “visceral realists”, based on his own avant-garde literary circle. Bolaño pilgrims can visit Café La Habana, on Calle Morelos, which inspired the buzzing Café Quito of the novel.
Casa Refugio Citlaltépetl
As Bolaño’s novel shows, Mexico City has a long history as a sanctuary for exiled writers and intellectuals. Those curious about the city’s famous émigrés can visit the house of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary assassinated here on Stalin’s orders in 1940, in Coyoacán...
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