In the midst of a marked lack of interest on the part of banks in the new tool, the electronic fixed term (transferable and divisible) will not see the light of day on April 30, as foreseen by the Central Bank’s regulations. Although the BCRA made its implementation more flexible and made it optional for banks to offer it to the public, two reasons weaken its arrival on the market: there are many doubts about the tax impact of its ambitious functionalities and, on the other hand, entities do not expect that or people neither physical nor companies demand it intensely, at least for the moment.
A tour of queries Infobae by the main banks of the system, both public and private, gave an almost unanimous response: the banks will comply with the Central regulations that force them to accept a CEDIP (electronic certificate for term deposits and investments) of a client and manage its collection and deposit but, at the same time, no bank in the system plans, for now, to offer its issuance.
If this scenario is fulfilled, the paradox will be reached that all banks will be in technical conditions to receive an electronic fixed term but that will not be possible because no entity made the commercial decision to issue it. Not even in the National Bank They plan to offer it to the public, at least in the short term.
The main obstacle that banks see in the CEDIP is the need for some resolution from the AFIP to determine its tax treatment: is it an investment instrument or a means of payment?
Until some bank decides to issue the first CEDIP, of course, it will not be able to know if its acceptance works. But implementation, in technological terms, does not seem to be a problem. There was a request to the BCRA to delay from April 30 to May 13 because, as the banks explain, it is not convenient to launch a new product at the beginning of the month, when the system is most loaded with operations.
It is planned that the CEDIP will operate with a technological network similar to that of the electronic check, whose use continues to grow. At Coelsa, the company in charge of electronic clearing of both the e-cheq and the new electronic fixed term, they assure that almost all banks have already complied with the necessary approval for the CEDIP to function without problems. When a bank decides to issue them, the system will be ready to process them.
The electronic fixed term or CEDIP was created by a rule of January 2023 in the previous administration, with a launch date for July of last year, which was later postponed. The BCRA had established that banks have the obligation to offer it: in this way, every time a client made a fixed term in their homebanking or mobile app, they could transform it into a CEDIP.
This new instrument brought functionalities that could convert an investment instrument, such as a fixed term, into a means of payment and even financing. The CEDIP is a fixed term that can be transferred to cancel obligations, commercial or between individuals, and even traded on the stock market. It can also be divided into installments, which would allow using less than the total amount to make a payment and keeping the rest in the original conditions. And, like a check, it can be cashed at the counter when due, endorsed or deposited into any account.
The current management of the BCRA in charge of Santiago Bausili decided not to apply extensions again and set the final start-up for April 30. But at the same time removed the obligation for banks and made the issuance optional; It is only mandatory to accept them. And banks are not attracted to the instrument.
The entities explain that today, the fixed term is now transferable. Upon maturity, any certificate of a time deposit may be deposited in an account other than that of its owner. But no one uses that function.
There is also a bump in terms of performance. A fixed term for the same amount may yield different rates if it is a natural or legal person. What happens if an individual transfers part or all of his fixed term to a company, or vice versa? What interest rate applies?
But the main obstacle It involves the need for some resolution from the AFIP that never arrived to determine the tax treatment of the new instrument throughout all its functionalities. Specifically: it is not clear if the CEDIP is going to pay the tax on the check, like any means of payment, or will be exempt from doing so, as corresponds to an investment instrument. The same could be extended to other taxes.
