MercadoLibre is a wannabe Alibaba

SINCE YOUR columnist first moved to a debt-ridden Latin America in the 1980s, he has seen many aspects of business in the region change for the better. Two have not. The first is the plethora of small businesses, from family-run corner shops and ice-cream parlours to hardware stores, that by and large are as scruffy as they were back then, eke out a meagre existence and remain stubbornly cash-only (even if cashiers still struggle to work out how much change you are due). The second is a visit to a bank, where, it sometimes seems, the only people who get what they need are those with a stocking over their head and an Uzi in their hands.