03/12/15 Bloomberg
In Mexico City, known for its sprawling street markets, consumers are shunning cash and opting for credit cards they swipe on merchants’ smartphones to pay for everything from shoes to tacos. “People will always ask, ‘do you take cards?’, and if you do, they’ll go ‘I want this, I want that,’” said Jorge Preciado, who promotes and recruits vendors to sell their wares in markets across Mexico, such as Bazar Condesa. “Cash will always circulate, but paying with a card is going to become the norm,” he said in a phone interview. About 29 million people, or more than half of Mexico’s workforce, operate in a gray economy that’s neither taxed or regulated.
Mexico Institute 