Latin American banks are to brainstorm ways to boost access to their products through the use of cellphones and computers in a series of conferences over the next few weeks.
The seminars are aimed at countering the downturn on their industry wrought by the global financial crisis, the Brazilian Federation of Banks, at the heart of the initiative, said Friday.
The first of the conferences will be held April 29 in Mexico, with others following in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in May, the federation said.
"In 2014 there will be 14.6 billion cellphones and 2.8 billion personal computers in the world, all connected to the Internet," it predicted.
In Brazil alone — Latin America's biggest economy — 152 million cellphones were already activated, it said.
Worldwide there were 3.55 billion cellphones, it added.
The federation said such technology was of "fundamental importance" and forecast that "mobile payments" in which cellphone accounts would be used for small purchases were on their way.
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