MEXICO CITY – Mexican convenience store operator Femsa announced this week that its new bank card appears to be a runaway success, opening another financial option for the many Mexicans who don’t use banks.

Over the past 10 months, Monterrey, Mexico-based FEMSA has issued one million of its “Saldazo” cards, Juan Fonseca, FEMSA’s head of investor relations, told analysts during a conference call, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. “This is the first banking relationship for most of the users of this product,” he said, adding that the number of people actively using the cards is roughly double the industry norm.

The success of the new card is in contrast to recent attempts by other Mexican retailers to migrate consumers to credit cards, which have largely received lukewarm responses. Every day, close to nine million people make a purchase at one of FEMSA’s Oxxo stores, according to the company. It had 12,395 outlets across Mexico at the end of September, for a penetration in some areas on par with the convenience store market in the United States.

Oxxo launched the Saldazo card in February together with the Mexican unit of Citigroup Inc. and Visa. It functions as a debit card that takes deposits of up to 7,000 Mexican pesos ($520) a month, allowing users to make purchases, withdrawals and transfer prepaid airtime to their mobile phones. The main benefit of the cards for Oxxo is to generate data (the cards do not generate a lot of fees). FEMSA hopes to mine the data, in order to use the information to tailor in-store promotions.