NetEase Games Club has partnered with payments firm EBANX to add local payment methods across five Latin American markets, projecting $8.4 billion in combined games revenue from those countries by the end of this year.

The deal covers Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Peru — described as an "initial rollout" — and brings Pix, SPEI, PagoEfectivo and Mercado Pago to NetEase's storefront. Players will see the new checkout options in Where Winds Meet, Marvel Rivals and other NetEase titles.

The commercial logic is straightforward. Card penetration in the region lags far behind real-time payment adoption, and NetEase is betting that matching checkout to how people actually pay will convert users who previously couldn't transact.

How big is the card gap?

The numbers EBANX cites make the case. Pix, Brazil's instant payment system, reaches roughly 96% of the country's adult population — about 170 million people. Meanwhile, 60 million Brazilians have no credit card at all.

The pattern repeats across the other markets:

• PagoEfectivo reaches 64% of Peru's adult population.
• SPEI reaches more than 50% of adults in Mexico.
• Brazil is expected to contribute $3.8 billion of the $8.4 billion regional total.

For a publisher monetising free-to-play and premium titles in the region, that gap is the opportunity: a meaningful share of potential spenders sit outside the card rails that most Western storefronts default to.

What changes for NetEase's LATAM business?

The partnership effectively localises the purchase funnel rather than just the storefront. Where Winds Meet and Marvel Rivals both drive transaction volume through NetEase Games Club, and each market's dominant payment method now works at checkout alongside cards.

The $8.4 billion figure comes from Payment and Commerce Market Intelligence data analysed by EBANX, so it should be read as an estimate from the payments provider itself — one with a clear commercial interest in the region's projected growth.

EBANX's roots matter here. The company was founded in Brazil, which remains the largest of the five markets in the deal, and it has built its business precisely on the local-payment infrastructure gap that global platforms historically struggled with.

"The next wave of video game growth is coming from emerging markets, and Latin America is leading it," said EBANX VP of commercial for APAC Sean Yu.

"By combining cards with the local payment methods players actually use, NetEase Games Club is building a truly localised checkout experience and unlocking access to a much larger share of the region's revenue potential."

The broader market signal

The deal signals where mid-to-large publishers are directing monetisation investment: not just localisation of content, but localisation of payment rails. Regions with high real-time payment adoption and low card penetration — Latin America, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa — increasingly determine whether a storefront converts or stalls.

Whether the five-country rollout expands will depend on early conversion data, and NetEase's framing of these markets as an initial rollout leaves the door open to further territories in 2026.