In another chapter of the fight between banks and fintechs, the central bank appears to have crooked arm in favor of the former. After months of complaints from financial institutions, the agency has decided include credit card payments within the interoperability system of instant payments via QR code.

“Businesses that display a QR code to charge credit cards must agree that customers can make payments with any interoperable digital wallet, regardless of QR branding,” the agency said at its board meeting on Thursday.

“Buyers and aggregators offering the service cannot discriminate in terms of commissions and accreditation of funds to the merchant based on the wallet brand that ordered the payment. This regulation was established by the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) with the aim of improving the experience for both users and businesses and It will come into force on 1 September.“, they clarified.

In the same vein, the BCRA established that when acquirers or aggregators are also acceptors of transfer payments, they must offer businesses a single QR code that contains all the payment instruments.

“This way, the payment experience will be friendlier for people as until now QR interoperability was limited to wire transfer (PCT) payments. Since the implementation of the new measure, after reading a QR code the user can choose whether to pay by PCT (debit on account) or by credit card, without the need to switch the digital wallet to make the payment,” the agency explained.