Amazon and Mexico's central bank are working on CoDi, a mobile payments system that lets consumers make payments using QR codes; testing begins this month
Stefanie Eschenbacher / Reuters :
Context & Ripple Effects
Mexico's central bank is building a state-backed mobile payments rail and has pulled in Amazon as a development partner for CoDi, the QR-code system entering testing this month. The move extends Amazon's payments footprint beyond its own buttons — it had already pushed Pay With Amazon into mobile apps back in 2015 — this time onto public banking infrastructure rather than a proprietary wallet.
First-order effects
- Mexican consumers and merchants get a QR-code payment option issued through the central bank rather than a card network or private wallet, with Amazon as an early merchant integrator during this month's testing phase.
Second-order effects
- Payment processors now have to decide whether to ride the new rail or compete with it — Stripe chose to enter Mexico just weeks after CoDi's launch (Stripe's Mexico launch), betting on its own stack atop local rails.
Third-order effects
- Banxico's roadmap runs from QR payments toward issuing its own digital currency by 2024 (the planned CBDC, alongside Brazil and Peru), suggesting a structural shift where Latin American states own the payment layer and private platforms like Amazon build distribution on top of it.
The trend: Latin American central banks are becoming payments-infrastructure builders, with global commerce platforms plugging into state rails instead of competing against them.