Design a Mercado Pago experience that helps informal street vendors in Mexico City switch from cash to digital payments.

Introduction

Mexico is one of Latin America's most cash-heavy economies: the taco stand by the metro and the fruit seller at an Iztapalapa tianguis run on coins and small notes. Mercado Pago already has the pieces: a wallet used by millions of Mexicans, QR payments, Point card readers, and a plan announced in 2026 to get a Mexican banking licence. The design problem is not "build a payment method". It is "make getting paid digitally less risky, cheaper and easier for a vendor than taking cash". I'll clarify the scope, explain why this matters to Mercado Pago now, pick a vendor segment, map their pain points and then design and measure a solution.

Step 1

Clarify Questions (3 minutes)

• Who counts as an "informal street vendor"?

• Why it matters: A tianguis stall selling MXN 3,000 a day differs from an elote cart selling MXN 600.
• Hypothetical answer: Unregistered micro-merchants in Mexico City (puestos, tianguis, food carts, mobile vendors) with no RFC tax registration or only a basic one.
• Impact: The design must work without formal business documents and with very small ticket sizes (MXN 15–80).

• Is the goal more vendors accepting digital payments, or more volume moving through Mercado Pago?

• Why it matters: Activation and habit need different features.
• Hypothetical answer: Habit. Many vendors already have a QR sticker they never use.
• Impact: I'll put "share of vendor sales that are digital" above signups.

• Are there constraints on fees or hardware?

• Why it matters: Card fees of about 3–4% eat a big part of the margin on a MXN 25 taco.
• Hypothetical answer: We can subsidise fees for a period; Point devices and QR are available.
• Impact: Zero-fee QR and transfers lead; card hardware comes second.

• Do buyers need to use Mercado Pago too?

• Hypothetical answer: No. Any bank app (SPEI/CoDi/DiMo), card or Mercado Pago wallet should work.

Propose the Goal

Increase the share of daily sales that informal Mexico City vendors take digitally through Mercado Pago, and make the money useful once it lands, so vendors don't rush to withdraw it as cash.

Define the Scope

The scope is a vendor experience inside the Mercado Pago app plus a printed collection kit. Buyer-side changes, a full credit product and tax filing are out of scope.