News

Mexican Internet portal plans to cross the border

April 3, 2002

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's Todito.complans to offer Mexicans working in the United States an alternative way to send earnings back home.

Todito, an Internet portal half-owned by broadcaster TV Azteca (NYSE:TZA - news), is negotiating with an unnamed U.S. media partner to install kiosks in supermarkets, home electronics stores, banks and other businesses to allow Mexican Americans to buy products such as refrigerators, stoves and other goods through the kiosks, and have them delivered to their families in Mexico.

Consumers will shop online and transfer money to personal accounts after depositing money with American businesses. Mexican companies would then deliver the products to their families in Mexico.

The idea is to give Mexican Americans an opportunity to share their earnings with family members and avoid notoriously expensive money transfers. According to Reuters news service, Mexican workers in the United States send an estimated $6 billion a year home to their families, usually through money transfers.

Tim Parsa, Todito's chief executive, said the company would make 3.5 percent to 9 percent commission on sales. Parsa said eventually customers in the U.S. could shop at 120 on-line stores, transfer money between accounts in the two countries and pay bills in Mexico. Todito.com plans to market the new service through Hispanic television channels that families view in the U.S.

DeCompras.com, an e-commerce Web site owned by Mexican regional Internet firm El Sitio, Inc. (NasdaqNM:LCTO - news), launched a similar concept not involving kiosks in 1999. Mexican Americans can shop from a catalog at a money transfer business.