> Accepting cards only shuts out most users in emerging markets. A region-by-region map of local payment methods to help you decide what to add first.

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Playbook

# A Map of Local Payment Methods: SEA, LatAm, Middle East, US/EU

2026-05-16

Many going-global teams assume “just wire up a card channel and we’re done,” then see dismal conversion in emerging markets. The reason is simple: most users there don’t use credit cards. Here’s a region-by-region map of local payment methods (LPMs) to help you decide what to add first.

## Why cards alone won’t do

In many emerging markets, **around 60% of transactions don’t go through credit cards**. Accepting only cards shuts these users out — that’s not an optimization question, it’s a yes-or-no one. Good LPM coverage usually lifts total revenue more than squeezing 1% of authorization out of a card channel.

## By region

**Southeast Asia**: e-wallets lead — Indonesia’s GoPay/OVO/DANA, the Philippines’ GCash, Thailand’s TrueMoney and PromptPay, Vietnam’s MoMo. Cash / over-the-counter (OTC) still holds share in Indonesia and the Philippines. Card penetration is low.

**Latin America**: Brazil runs on **Pix** (instant payments, near-universal) + Boleto (offline vouchers) + installments (parcelado — local card installments are cultural); Mexico has OXXO cash vouchers + SPEI. Not supporting Pix in Brazil basically means writing off the market.

**Middle East**: local bank cards (e.g. Saudi mada) + high Apple Pay penetration + cash on delivery (COD) still present in some markets. The UAE has decent card acceptance, but mada is a must in Saudi Arabia.

**US/Europe**: cards dominate, but don’t ignore Europe’s iDEAL (Netherlands), Bancontact (Belgium), SEPA Direct Debit, plus Apple Pay / Google Pay everywhere and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL, e.g. Klarna).

**Africa** (if relevant): mobile wallets (M-Pesa and friends) are infrastructure-level.

## How to decide what to add first

Don’t wire up twenty methods on day one. In this order:

1.  Look at your **top 3 countries by current traffic**, and add the 1–2 highest-penetration LPMs in each;
2.  Prioritize **instant payments / wallets** (Pix, GCash, mada) — good for both conversion and settlement;
3.  Add cash vouchers (OTC/Boleto/OXXO) based on order value and user mix;
4.  Expand later, guided by data.

## Integration: don’t negotiate one by one

Integrating each LPM separately means N contracts and N reconciliation formats. The realistic approach is to **integrate through an orchestration layer**: one integration, route transactions to the right local method by region, and collapse reconciliation into one set.

> KeepPay unifies cards + local payment methods under one orchestration layer with region-aware routing. [Book a demo](/en/) and we’ll suggest an integration priority for your main markets.