Most common payment methods in Colombia

All of the above.like everywhere

Its not really a third world country you know

No etransfers like Canada though

I was in  Colombia and much of South America for 2 years. My Visa and Mastercard worked in all places that accepted credit cards. My Discover card was not accepted anywhere I tried. My Debit card worked in most of the ATMs. Some ppl use Western Union to send cash to themselves, but the lines at WU booths can be long and slow. I have had issues with that service in other ways too. In Co, Nequi is common for locals. Bank transfers as well, but its not always easy for a traveller to get a bank acct in Colombia.

I did fine with my cards and ATMs. It was very much like the States.  I did keep my cards and extra money in my sock or a money belt, in case of robbery, just to be safe, although I never had a problem anywhere I went.

Rappi is fantastic and doesn't cost much for a delivery; they bring literally whatever you want to your door. They accept my credit cards as well. Oh... I did find that for other online purchases I couldn't use my cards because you need a Colombian cedula.  In-store, it always worked. Amazon delivers a large portion of their catalog to Colombia, and accepts my cards since its a US based account.

I entered my credit card into the Uber app and never had to pay in cash. Super smooth rides that way.

Remitly is better than WU or Wise for sending money

At least from Canada

Also US citizens have Charles Schwab accounts for withdrawing funds because they reimburse the extremely exhorbitant Colombian ATM fees. Matter of fact , Schwab will reimburse you the ATM fees in any foriegn country.

As a Canadian, I have a Wealth Simple Fintec card which reimburses all foriegn ATM fees and a Home Trust preferred Visa which is zero annual fee, and zero home country FX charge  ( unlike major banks which charge 2.5% in Canada ).which I use for credit card purchases in person or online.

I used Remitly to send money to people's banks in Colombia, but for some reason they shut down my account. I use Xoom now.

I've never used either for sending as cash pickup, only bank transfers.

One odd thing, at least for me, was that most times when using a credit card, they would ask "Cuantos quotas?" and I had no idea what that meant at first. It turns out that most businesses have a method for spreading your charge over some number of months (quotas) to lessen the charge to your credit card each month, but of course they are essentially giving you a loan, and they charge interest for that. I always just replied with "uno".

@Paulooch

I was barred and put on a black list by a slimy Mickey mouse Canadian.Fintec called " Koho" years ago.

They went all AI early before the bugs were worked out and thier algorithim  shut my account.

Apparently, there is or was a law in Canada stating certain companies with offices in Canada could not have clients with  accounts who " resided"  in other countries and particularily  Colombia..but they never defined what " reside " means, physically or for how long, or as a " non resident for tax purposes". These " laws" change all the time, as do the Canadian financial regulatory laws.

For this reason or paranoia about " money laundering" this Koho fintec company's algorithim  shut me down one month when I transferred too much money into Colombia.

That would be ok except the cajones illegally and immorally put me on a " black list" and for 6 months I couldnt get accounts in XE.com, Wise and another Fintec in Canada. Luckily this is an internal thing with the " fintec" mafia, and did not effect my credit rating.

And no one would give me a straight answer or a reason because they didnt wanted to be liable legally.

Thats why it always says in th  Ts andCs of any bank or any type of financial institution's contract that they can close your account at anytime for any reason without an explanation. Dont think putting you on a " black list" is legal though.

Lesson to this- make payments, bring money into Colombia from several sources and have backups....use credit cards for purchases , debit, fintec cards for ATM withdrawals and money transfer companies like XE, Remitly, Zooom for transfer to your Colombian bank accounts. Also have minimum of 2 bank accounts in Colombia.

Keep your zero or low fee, low FX charge  credit  cards and Fintec/ Debit cards that reimburse ATM fees as your primary  methods for Colombian Transactions but have your home country credit and debit cards as back up.

Interesting discussion about bank transfers so I did a thorough 2 hour deep dive with the help of ChatGPT and then myself researching/verifying the 15 pages of information it provided.

I do have active accounts with Xoom, Remitly and Wise and as such I cross referenced in real time and submitted the screen shots to ChatGPT the exchange rates/fees/spreadsheet from these 3 transfers companies, an interesting deep dive for sure.

First know that I have been using mainly Xoom for my monthly and bi-monthly transfers for 12 years so I have a solid history of roughly 160 + transfers from my US bank account directly into my Bancolombia account, and of note is I have never once out of these 160 transfers had an issue with Xoom, so this hold a lot of weight in my decision of which transfer company to use. It usually takes about 4 hours to deposit the transfer into my Bancolombia account.

This being said the most efficient cost savings/best exchange rate was to transfer is Wise followed by Remitly then last is Xoom BUT there is literally a difference of between 1.03% to 1.51% between the 3 money exchange/transfer. Over 12 years this does indeed add up therefore I will look into changing it up a bit.

So going forward and starting next month I will mix up my transfers with the 3 companies and over the course of 4 to 6 months with real experience I will be able to speak more in depth.

As for day to day purchases, know that I have a Bancolombia account for 10+ years along with debit card and 2 Bancolombia credit cards, also have Nequi which comes in handy from time to time BUT I frequently use my 2 Bancolombia credit cards, a VISA and MasterCard for the vast majority of my purchases, I tend to carry little cash for misc items.

As an aside my Bancolombia account fee is roughly 11.000 pesos monthly and my credit card monthly fees are roughly 23.000 pesos monthly (had the first 2 years no fees). A small price to pay for the convivence it has provided me.