PayRetailers Chile SpA has been authorised by the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero to conduct cross-border acquiring, under transitional provisions of Chapter III.J.2 of the Compendium of Financial Regulations. The transitional wording is the part worth reading.
What was announced
The company said the CMF granted the authorisation on 11 February 2025, covering cross-border acquiring — processing international transactions for Chilean merchants. César Rodríguez, VP of banking for Latin America, called it “a significant milestone that reaffirms our commitment to delivering compliant and scalable payment solutions for businesses in Chile”. No authorisation number was published.
What cross-border acquiring is
Acquiring is the merchant side of a card or account payment: the institution that accepts the transaction on the merchant's behalf and settles the money to them. Cross-border acquiring means the acquirer sits outside the country where the merchant does business.
It has historically been a grey area in much of Latin America. A merchant could be served by an acquirer abroad with little local supervision, which was convenient and made it hard for regulators to see money movement, enforce consumer rules or apply tax.
Chile bringing the activity inside Chapter III.J.2 is the regulator closing that gap. The transitional provision is how a regulator handles firms already doing the thing it has just decided to regulate: it authorises them under an interim rule while a permanent framework is finalised. It is real authorisation, and the terms may change when the permanent regime lands.
Why it matters for this industry
Chile has not yet regulated online gambling. Bills have been in progress for years; the market operates without a domestic licensing regime. Payments regulation therefore arrives ahead of gambling regulation — and an operator's ability to take Chilean money is governed by financial rules rather than gambling ones.
That order of events is common in Latin America and worth tracking, because payment authorisations are often the earliest signal that a market is being brought into view.
What our records show
We hold one authorisation for PayRetailers: a Banco Central do Brasil record, number 46996177, at our highest tier because we opened the register ourselves. We record it live in five markets: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
It was founded in 2017 in Barcelona and offers pay-ins, pay-outs and more than 300 local payment methods across Latin America through a single API.
If you are taking Chilean payments
Ask under which provision your provider is authorised and whether it is transitional or permanent. A transitional authorisation can change terms when the permanent regime arrives, and your contract should say what happens if it does.
- PayRetailers
