Chili: e-business

• De goede telecommunicatie-infrastructuur, ondersteunende wetgeving, het gebruik van creditcards en een wijdverspreid gebruik van pc's en internet in Chili hebben bijdragen aan de ontwikkeling van e-commerce in het land.
• De Kamer van Koophandel van Santiago heeft een e-commercecertificaat opgesteld, E-cert Chile, om de onzekerheid rond onlineaankopen te verkleinen. 
• Elektronisch bankieren is populair.

Uitgebreide informatie is beschikbaar gesteld door de Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). Meer informatie leest u in onderstaande summary E-commerce van de EIU.

Forms of e-commerce

The environment for e-commerce in Chile is more advanced than in the rest of Latin America because of a higher penetration rate of credit cards, personal computers and Internet access. The Santiago Chamber of Commerce (Cámara de Comercio de Santiago- CCS) notes, however, that business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce outpaces business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce.

Although hard data regarding the reasons for this are difficult to collect, anecdotal evidence from the CCS notes some hindrances to online shopping; these include limited use of the postal service (because of the concentration of services in Santiago, the capital); high postage rates; limited courier routes along a geographically dispersed population; and the tradition of paying bills in person or at the bank. Market research cited by the CCS also indicates that most Chileans enjoy the social aspect of shopping in malls. As a result, few of the dotcom companies that emerged in the late 1990s have survived, and traditional retailers now account for virtually all local B2C business. Indeed, the leading local department-store chains- Falabella, Paris and Ripley - have created successful B2C websites that complement their existing stores.

Electronic banking is popular and increasingly sophisticated. Online services include fund transfers to current accounts in other banks; direct debit orders to pay utility bills; stockmarket transactions; contracting of overdraft facilities, consumer credits or credit cards; and investments in certificates of deposit or mutual funds. In the 12-months to June 2010, there were 2.78m bank clients registered on online bank sites that conducted 145m transactions, up from 2.27m clients and 136m transactions for the same period in 2009, according to the Superintendency of Banks and Financial Institutions (Superintendencia de Bancos e Instituciones Financieras).

Growth of e-commerce

Internet use in Chile was initially stimulated by a 63% cut in variable telecoms charges for Internet use in 1999 and by a halving of fixed Internet access charges. The number of Internet users was estimated at 8.96m in 2010, bringing the rate of access to the Internet to 57% of the population, according to the Santiago Chamber of Commerce (Cámara de Comercio de Santiago- CCS). These figures are up from 8.37m users and an access rate of 49% in 2009.

Chile has one of Latin America's most advanced telecommunications and information-technology (IT) markets, helped by a regulatory system that seeks to promote competition. The Economist Intelligence Unit's digital economy rankings placed Chile in 30th place out of 70 countries in 2010 (unchanged from 2009). Compared with its regional peers, Chile ranked ahead of Mexico (41st) and Brazil (42nd).

According to the latest information available from the CCS, business-toconsumer (B2C) sales in Chile reached US$590m in 2010, up from US$380m in 2008. Total e-commerce in the country reached US$32bn in 2010, up from US$23.6bn in 2008. Total e-commerce figures include B2C, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government transactions (B2G). B2G activity is growing significantly owing to generalised online tax payments, more transactions through the government's procurement site (Chilecompra.cl ) and the rapid spread of electronic invoicing.

Following the introduction of wireless local loop (WLL) technology in recent years - which has been competing with the asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) and cable modem - the number of broadband subscribers has risen, reaching 1.77m at August 2010 from 1.66m at end-2009 and 1.42m at end-2008 according to the CCS.

E-government trends

The United Nations eGovernment Survey 2010 has Chile as the second-highestranked country in South America (after Colombia) in terms of the country's level of access to government services online. The survey ranks Chile 18th in the list of the top 20 countries in online service development because of the breadth of online government services that are available to citizens.

Key online services include the ability to file all taxes online, in a simplified process through the Internal Tax Service (Servicio de Impuestos Internos- SII). The SII website generates annual income tax returns online for each taxpayer with the information available to the SII, and most taxpayers merely accept them. Since 2005 taxpayers can also do this through short-text-message service using mobile phones. If the tax return suggested by the SII is wrong or incomplete, the taxpayer inputs the missing income information online, and the SII's computers automatically recalculate the tax liability or refund due.

The newly Piñera administration has embraced social-networking technologies (such as Twitter and Facebook) to disseminate information directly to the public. Use of this technology increased dramatically following the earthquake on February 27th 2010, when impaired telecommunications towers limited the public's ability to communicate via mobile and fixed line telephones. For many, the only way to access information and/or to communicate their status was via the Internet. The trend towards social-networking media was also apparent following the discovery of the 33 trapped miners in the northern region of Copiapó in August 2010. Government officials, including the president and various ministers and elected officials, all took to Twitter to express their confidence throughout the rescue process.