Following the complaint by Modo, the banks’ digital wallet, against Mercado Libre for alleged anti-competitive practices, which was formalized on Monday within the National Commission for the Defense of Competition (CNDC), a key player in the media sector yesterday added his voice against the company founded by Marcos Galperin.
“To achieve true democratization of payment methods, it is essential to establish equitable rules of the game for all members of the ecosystem,” the company said in a statement. Chamber of Credit and Purchase Cards (Atacyc)an entity that brings together in its Acquirers Commission some 15 companies that compete against Mercado Pago in the business of providing electronic payment collection and processing services to businesses.
The statement pointed to the existence of “certain market asymmetries caused by regulations that appear to disproportionately benefit certain actors”, alluding without naming it to Mercado Pago.
“It is essential for the health of the acquisition market that the same obligations are imposed on all actors involved. Although the current regulation requires that all acquirers accept all wallets, the same requirement is not established in the opposite direction, creating an asymmetry that distorts competition in said market,” said the Acquirers Commission, made up of companies such as Payway, Fiserv, Worldpay, Getnet, Nave and Viumi among others. Almost all of these companies have made progress in interoperability with Modo and other wallets, but they have not done so in the case of Mercado Pago.
“With the current configuration of the wallet and QR market, this asymmetry favors the conditions for the generation of a monopoly in the Acquisition market,” they emphasized.
“Credit cards are a vitally important means of payment in this ecosystem. Any unequal treatment that compromises free competition is unacceptable. “We therefore urge a rethinking of regulations to foster a fairer and more competitive environment where all participants can operate on a level playing field,” the statement concluded.
Atacyc’s claim (an entity that, in addition to the acquirers, brings together the big “brands” of the business, Visa and Mastercard) does not even expressly name Mercado Pago but Its second recipient is the Central Bankwhich has stayed out of the dispute over the interoperability of QR card payments, even though in fact the rule it issued is not being met.
“Credit cards are a vitally important means of payment in this ecosystem. Any unequal treatment that compromises free competition is unacceptable” (Atacyc)
At Atacyc they give as an example the “Transfers 3.0” regulation that determined the interoperability of QR payments with transfers. The rule in this sense is very clear: all QR readers must accept payments from all wallets and, at the same time, all apps must be designed to pay in any QR reader. The obligations are reciprocal between acquirers and digital wallets.
But in the case of QR card payments, the BCRA rule established obligations only for one of the two legs of the business. And in both, Mercado Pago has a predominant position: it is, by far, the most used wallet and, also, it has a wide network of businesses to which it provides the collection service.
The entity explained that the “asymmetry” of the rule consists in that all QRs must accept card payments from all wallets, but not the other way around. Thus, Mercado Pago is not obliged to allow users of its wallet to pay with the card loaded in their wallet in a QR reader that is not from its own company. In this way, this regulatory gap could force many businesses to have more than one POS terminal on their counter to serve all possible alternatives.
Another key fact in this sense is that Mercado Pago has not yet started any management so that your wallet users can pay by card at merchants with a POS terminal provided by Payway, Fiserv or other companies. There, there will be no interoperability. “The rule does not force them and they have no incentive to do so; “They want to keep the entire market,” they said in Atacyc.
After the statement, the Atacyc Acquirers Commission declined to explain the steps to follow in this growing conflict that they jumped into to support Modo.
