Brazil's growing debit market sparks new Spotify collaboration

Brazil Spotify, EBANX and Worldline are partnering to offer a debit card, an increasingly important portion of Brazil's payments market.

Worldline and EBANX developed the debit card option for Spotify. Worldline provides payment and transaction services to Spotify in over 50 countries. EBANX, a global fintech company based in Brazil, specializes in payment solutions in Latin America.

"Debit cards are a very important payment method in Brazil, and have been flourishing as a preferred option in many situations," said Andre Allain, director of payment partnerships and EMA at EBANX.

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The debit card option will allow Spotify to reach new users in the country including those who don’t have a credit card or want to keep their information private. Until now, credit card and boleto (a local push payment solution in Brazil) were the main methods of payment for Spotify Premium.

Cash remains the favored currency in the country, representing 50% of revenue, according to a report published in July by the Central Bank of Brazil. But debit card payments are up 6% from 2013 to 2018, representing 20% of trade revenue.

The transaction process requires consumers to enter their card information, and debit will not require authentication numbers or a PIN, said Thais Fischberg, head of LATAM at Worldline. The payment will be immediately charged to the cardholder’s bank account. The card information then gets stored and used to charge automatically on a monthly basis.

The move could increase Brazil's e-commerce market and add online payment options.

Online purchases increased 15% in 2017 from the previous year, mentioned by Wordline in reference to Ebit's 2017 Webshoppers report, which also forecast 12% growth for the Brazilian e-commerce market in 2018.