The new round of the old fight between banks and fintechs is heating up. After the claims of the entities that ADEBA brings together and the cross-accusing with Mercado Pago, it is now the international capital banks that require that the interoperable QRs regulated by the Central Bank they also include payments initiated with credit cards.

In a letter signed by Claudio Cesario, president of the Argentine Banking Association, which brings together entities such as the Banco Santander, BBVA, HSBC and ICBC, among other things, the banks have warned that although QR payments continue to gain market share, “in practice for users and businesses there is still a lot of friction when making a payment.

The Wire Transfers 3.0 system, launched at the end of 2021, aimed to “open” the systems of banks and wallets to be able to pay by scanning a common QR code and to ensure that users sending money from one account to another immediately and at no cost. Although adoption has been increasing for more or less a year, the institutions are asking that this option also be open to payments that are made via a QR, but using a credit card.

“Although the (system of) payments by credit transfer (PCT) is interoperable between banks and fintechs, this is not extendable to credit card initiated QR payments, as they can only pay by QR with credit cards if they are customers of the company that supplies the QR Code to the businessCesario explained.

The press release warns that, as a result of this “barrier”, two things happen: “sellers are forced to do it increase costs by hiring more than one QR vendor so as not to lose customers”, on the one hand. And on the other, customers are “forced to add their credit card to the majority QR provider in order to carry out the operation they wish or in any case bear a overcharge of almost 8% direct on the value of the transaction”.

As in ADEBA’s two claims, the foreign entities claim that there is a asymmetrical situation between POS collection terminals (those offered by bank-connected processors), where businesses can charge by debit, credit and scan the interoperable QR; and those offered by fintech, such as Mercado Pago.

“The banks they see no reason so that, despite the claims made to the BCRA, the full interoperable functioning of the QR for credit cards continues to be delayed,” the letter states. clarion consulted the Central Bank on the formal status of these claims and what they are the position that the monetary authority will take in this fight and did not comment.

less cost

The agencies say that if credit cards were added to ‘full’ interoperability, costs would be reduced ‘for businesses because would not be forced to hire different suppliers, and it would mean less shifting of that burden onto consumers.”

And that customers would also benefit, as this would give them the ability to access quotas and not only being able to make a purchase using the balance of one’s own visa accounts or payment accounts, such as Cassa di Risparmio or Current Account “and Payment Accounts”, without first having to be forced to add one’s credit card to the platform Have a dominant position to the market, they say.

In short, banks warn that, unable to offer customers an “all-in-one solution” for digital top-ups, companies acquire different payment platforms. And there another crack opens: the entities ensure that the “charges” they charge companies for payment processing have been regulated by the BCRA since 2017. “with a decreasing trend” and not so those who charge fintech.

“For many years, fiscal asymmetries have favored fintech in the hypothesis that it was a condition for the growth of the ecosystem and have also lasted for a long time for bigtech, favoring their expansion and investment capacity”, reads the document.

“Banks, meanwhile, continued to suffer from municipal rates, provincial and national taxes. Nonetheless, they made major investments in ATM technologies and networks used by fintech users,” he remarked.