| Headline: Web Monitor Source: Euromoney Date: June 2000 LATIN AMERICAN E-FINANCE The MTV of finance Patagon.com has moved ahead at a bewildering speed. The three-year-old brainchild of an Argentine college student, Latin America's leading financial portal was bought by BSCH earlier this year valuing it at $700 million. The changes the internet has brought to daily life in the US and other developed countries are tiny compared to the revolution in store for emerging markets. Getting on-line in Manhattan brings to the fingertips services that were previously either a phone call or a block away. In the Chiapas or the Amazon it may be the difference between having a bank account or keeping your money stuffed in a mattress. With less than 5% of Latin Americans having cheque books or credit cards, the scope for internet banking is many times larger than in the US. Just as for many Latinos the first telephone they ever owned was a cellular one, so their first bank account is likely to be on the internet. One of the first people to be aware of this potential was 26-year-old Wenceslao Casares, one of the entrepreneurs behind Patagon.com. |