While the instant nature of digital payments has reached the transactional payments segment in many parts of the world thanks to technological advancements in recent years, Argentina still remains apart from this trend because of restrictions imposed by the exchange rate.
In the financial system there is expectation because this short-term change and a series of possibilities opens up for both people and companies freely move your money to and from different parts of the world. For Gabriel Kirestian, General Manager and Head of Payments for Latin America at Citi, the The end of actions can represent a breaking point also for the banking system e generate new flows of money into the country.
“The biggest short-term expectation, because of the impact it has on the payment system and the payments ecosystem in general, is whether we move to a model of free availability of currency, foreign exchange transactions and so on” , noted and He added: “At the same time, in the medium and long term, the expectation that we have, and that we are working very actively with the Argentine regulators, is the ability to integrate instant payment systems in different countries of the region: with the same characteristics, the same user experiences, which generate payment corridors with the different countries of Latin America”.
Kirestian has been at Citi for almost 30 years, starting in the local country branch and quickly working his way up to a regional position. His vision of the local payment system is important: although US Bank sold its retail banking business in the country years ago, Citi manages nearly 90% of the volume that digital wallets do today.
“We are a corporate bank. However, we are probably the main onethe intermediary of consumption flows in the country, with 90% of transactions carried out in the country via virtual wallets. Citi processes almost all Argentine virtual wallet transfers. So even we, who are a corporate bank and do not have a relationship with private individuals, have a very important role in this objective of financial inclusion and a very important role in the payments ecosystem. We have peaks of 13 million transactions per day and they are almost all carried out by private individuals.”explained the manager in conversation with Clarín.
Kirestian was passing through Buenos Aires for a SWIFT banking convention, a global network connecting banks and other financial institutions, where Argentina’s ability to achieve greater integration in the world of global money transfers was highly anticipated. “There is a global transformation in payments, both domestic and cross-border, which is supported by a very strong technological transformation. In domestic payments, what we see is that more and more markets, there are 70 markets, in other words, virtually everyone in the world has implemented payment systems. The truth is that Argentina was a true pioneer in the region,” he explained after that event.
“This already established transformation in the domestic payment scheme is now seen in international payments. The use of wallets, 24/7 instant payments, the QR code, the payment information associated with the payment that is resolved same time same time Now users request the same thing when making an international transfer. In Argentina there is still the limit of macroeconomics”he warned.
In this sense he stated: “The expectation we have is that the foreign exchange market can be liberated, so that transactions with the passive exchange rate can be implemented and Argentina can benefit from a trend, a technological innovation towards the world of cross-border exchange payments already existing in other countries.
Regarding the technological possibilities that the country’s banks and companies have to offer their customers the possibility of making instant payments anywhere in the world once exchange barriers are eliminated, Kirestian said: “The solutions already exist and are functioning in other places in the world. One of these actors already operates in Argentina, so from a technological point of view there would be no delay. To the extent that the regulation accompanies it, once again we can carry out exchange rate operations in a certain way online, in real timethis is immediate.”
Source: Clarin
