Mercado Pago Guide: The Boundaries of an Ecosystem Payment Platform in Latin America
Mercado Pago is often slotted into the "Stripe of Latin America" box, but it is an ecosystem platform rather than a pure gateway. It is at once a payment method fed by Mercado Libre traffic, a consumer wallet in its own right, and an acquirer open to third-party merchants. This article sets out how eligibility differs across those three roles, what "Latin America is not one market" actually means in practice, and the four boundaries a cross-border merchant hits at the account layer.