This Thursday, the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) ordered the incorporation of prepaid cards to the interoperable QR payments. Thus, they will be added to what already applies for virtual operations with transfers and credit cards.
The measure suffered several postponements in the context of the conflict between Payment Market and banks. In the last hours, both parties reached an agreement.
In this way, once the system is fully operational, all QR code readers will have to accept credit card payments from all virtual wallets, as already happens with QR payments made with transfer from account to account.
Within 270 days, the same should happen with prepaid cards.
QR payments: what are the new rules
Once the system is up and running, all devices QR code reading They will need to be prepared to accept card payments from all wallets, regardless of brand, similar to what is already happening with QR payments made by transfer from account to account.
Until now, Mercado Pago QR readers only accepted card payments if the card was linked to a Mercado Pago wallet.
However, a BCRA regulation eliminated this exclusivity for Mercado Pago and forced it to open its network to Modo and any other wallet. Despite several extensions, the implementation date initially planned for April 30 has not yet been met.
QR payments: what happens in the event of fraud
In fraud situations, the responsibility will fall on the wallet that initiates the transaction. This responsibility will only be waived when the wallet processes the payment using the technical tokenization and authentication protocols specified by the card brand.
Additionally, if the transaction cannot be completed using the technical standards provided by the card brand, as long as these have been adopted by all participants in the transaction, except the acquirer/aggregator.
Likewise, liability can be exempted if there is a prior agreement between issuers, wallets and/or acquirers / aggregators involved in the transaction.
What were Mercado Pago’s objections to the security issue?
System security challenges and fraud incidents were major concerns that Payment Market used to avoid moving towards interoperability.
Marcos Galperín’s company had highlighted on April 30 that the use of the QR network entails costs and requires detailed contractual agreements between the system participants, which include clauses to prevent fraud, safeguard the security of users, protect property intellectual property and protect personal data.
Although using the network implies costs, according to the agreement reached, Mercado Pago will be the one who finally assumes them.
The initial idea of Mercado Pago was that Modo, DNI Account or other applications would pay a commission every time one of its clients decided to use the wallet to make card payments via QR. There was no agreement.
In the days before April 30, Mercado Pago requested 0.3% of the amount for each transaction; However, the wallets chose to stop negotiations.
Despite having given in on this aspect, the interoperability of QR payments with credit cards will be a great benefit for Mercado Pago.
With all of your point-of-sale terminals located across your merchant network accepting debit or credit card payments from any wallet, reader utilization is likely to see significant growth.
