Bogotá’s largest food market is on the front line of the Colombian central bank’s war on cash.
Every morning, shoppers swarm Paloquemao for everything from sizzling arepas to ripe avocados and freshly-cut roses trucked in from farms an hour away.
Card readers are a rarity. Buyers like 67-year-old retiree José Ramírez hop off city buses with their pockets stuffed with small bills.
“I don’t trust those tools,” Ramírez said of digital payments as he browsed the meat stalls, where butchers hawk hefty cuts of beef dangling from hooks. “I know business owners who’ve been robbed using ...