He central bank established clearer conditions to advance in what they call “Full Interoperability”, after an agreement reached between the banks and Payment Market, and he set a deadline for the players to integrate their solutions under these new rules.
The decision had been resisted by the main operator, Mercado Pago, which did not want to fully open its QR to the rest of the wallets. This caused complete interoperability to be postponed several times. But, this Thursday, finally The BCRA confirmed that the deadline for the entry into force of the interoperable QR expires at the end of July for card payments from virtual wallets, as currently happens through transfers.
It is worth remembering that, until now, If the business has a QR code provided by Mercado Pago It only accepts cards loaded in its wallet and not those from other banks. Starting with the news that became known this Thursday, they will be able to operate with any card from any wallet with any QR.
What the BCRA defined and the agreement between banks and Mercado Pago
Through Communication “A” 8032, The BCRA established that all virtual wallets are required to read all QR codes. This applies to both banks and payment service providers. “This represents an important improvement in the payment experience for businesses and users“added the official communication.
The truth is that the decision of the board of directors of the monetary regulator comes after reaching “an agreement with the banks to advance the QR interoperability of credit cards in contractual and technical terms that remained to be defined”, as reported to Ambit sources from the fintech sector.
Likewise, they pointed out that On the Mercado Pago side, everything is ready and the issue is resolvedso it is expected that “next Monday interoperability with cards from all wallets will be available in three chain stores”, although they warned that, as in any technical development, the expansion to the rest of the stores will be progressive.
QR codes: the conditions set by the BCRA
Furthermore, the BCRA set the maximum commission for a virtual walletas Payment Marketyou can charge an issuing bank to “intermediate” a credit card payment.
The monetary authority ordered that This commission may not be greater than 0.07% per operation.
In this way, if a wallet “reads” the payment originated with a credit card issued by another entity, it can charge that bank that commission that is equivalent to 7 cents for every $10,000 collected.
Prepaid cards add to interoperability with QRs
The BCRA also decided add payments made with prepaid cards to the interoperable QRsuch as those issued by fintech such as Ualá, Prex and Lemon, among others.
The Central gave them a deadline of two months (60 days) players to integrate their solutions under these new rules and nine months to prepaid cards to be able to join “full interoperability”.
Source: Ambito
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