In Argentina there are almost 64 million cell lines, 45 million savings banks with associated debit cards and 35 million Internet users who spend their most time browsing on mobile devices.
This ecosystem demonstrates that the conditions are in place for mobile payments to become a reality and their implementation becomes massive.
There is a fact that is very present among the referents of the sector: the number of people that leaves aside the wallet to give way to the smartphone has been growing strongly.
"For this process to be a success, we need to work on two fundamental axes," explains Jorge Larravide, Commercial Manager of Red Link, a company specialized in technology and means of collection.
"On the one hand, it is necessary that there be effective communication, that all people and businesses know that there are other mechanisms that are better and safer than using cash. On the other, it is required to change the habits of people who are accustomed to using only cash money, "he adds.
In the market there are different technologies to use the cell phone to pay for products or services. Born in fintechs, banks or service collection companies, each method is adapted to both digital and non-banking clients.
The ones that gain the most strength are the virtual wallets that - associated with an account, a credit card and even cryptocurrencies - allow you to carry out various actions from the phone, such as:
- Pay for a service or a consumer good.
- Transfer money to other people.
- Recharge credit in various telephony or transport services (SUBE).
Among these wallets are some such as TodoPago, ValePEI, Ualá or those that use virtual accounts such as Mercado Pago, PIM or Rapipago.
The Immediate Electronic Payment (PEI) is one of the most accessible options, since it articulates with other users the sending or the request for money as if a WhatsApp messaging service was used.
Likewise, the modality of virtual accounts gains ground among those people who are not banked.
They have the particularity that they require "cash in" mechanisms; that is, you have to charge your wallet with a balance and then use it to send cash or pay for products and services. To recover the funds, you have to resort to "cash out" and thus withdraw the money.
"Virtual wallets do not compete with the cards, but with the cash in terms of adoption capacity," says Santiago Benvenuto, manager of New Businesses of Prism Means of Payment, showing a scenario where commercial informality is still commonplace of collections.
"Wallets do not just have to be transactional platforms: they must have an impact on people's lifestyle, so they must respond to their daily consumption habits. That is what is going to generate a great adoption of these platforms. "
At this point, the user is not a millennial in its majority, but an individual between 30 and 50 years old, a segment with greater economic activity.
The code that gains ground
On the other hand, in Argentina, collection in stores is gaining strength through Quick Response Code or QR Code. It is a simple operation to implement above all by businesses.
For their use, they must have a printed code available to buyers, who, at the time of payment, must scan it with their telephone and debit the amount of money needed from any of the means of payment associated with their electronic wallet.
"QR operations are growing rapidly, doubling their use every month since the last three months," says Benvenuto, from his experience with TodoPago.
"We are catching up and the cell phone is getting into the lives of people, more than what credit cards do," he adds.
This system is much cheaper for businesses compared to a posnet and the high fees charged for credit and debit cards that must be paid month by month.
While the commercial sector is "in its infancy" in this matter, more and more entrepreneurs, providers of home services and professionals who opt for this collection mechanism.
Days ago, through Decree 933/2018, it was established that "the payments that can be made through the use of rapid response codes (QR) that use the standard established by the Central Bank regulations" are equivalent to using the Debit.
In this way, the initial kick was taken towards a digitalization path in the commercial field.
Mercado Pago, the collection platform that was born from the hand of Mercado Libre and which today already has its own flight, has agreements with more than 200,000 shops for the use of QR.
It is estimated that there are already one million payers through this system. To this, there are more than 2,500 services and taxes available to pay. In these cases, the bar code on the ballot is scanned.
Ignacio Estivariz, director of Digital Wallet of Mercado Pago, confirms that the number of digital transactions is quintupled every month, while the QR adoption rate had an increase of 100% in June.
"It is a platform that seeks to democratize access to money, incorporating the financial ecosystem to those unbanked customers in a simple way and without needing a card or a savings account," says Estivariz.
In addition, he points out that the unbanked customer requires "to have an account in the platform and to deposit money that allows him to operate".
The most common uses given to these transactional mechanisms are, first, the recharge of balances, followed by transactions with QR and sending money.
"Argentina has a very high rate of adoption of technology, although it is slower than in Brazil but faster than in Mexico," they say from Mercado Pago, which operates throughout the region.
Right now
The other technology used to pay is contactless (contactless), present in the most daily operations. There are two types: Near Field Communications (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
The first is the one that uses the SUBE card and that needs a direct contact with the point of sale. From the initial moment, this modality was thought for cell phones.
Due to its characteristics, it does not allow the transmission of large amounts of data, but rather for instantaneous communication between a device and a receiver. Therefore, its most common use is identification and validation of equipment and people.
In addition, high-end smartphones already come with an NFC chip, so they are easily converted into payment tools. In fact, the Google Pay, Apple Pay and Alipay systems take advantage of this technology. Although these platforms are not yet enabled in Argentina.
For its part, RFID is used to pay at tolls, where it is paid only for proximity. Its system is simple, since it identifies through a reader - without contact and at a distance - a card or label that a person, a moving vehicle or a product can carry.
The banking gets in tune
"Customers were migrating from going to the branch to use home banking, especially the younger ones, and even more so are the millennials, for whom the use of the website is almost unacceptable," explains Francisco Nelson, Director of Digital Transformation. of Axxon Consulting.
"They want to use an application that gives you a solution within a few minutes, that is easy to use and allows you to perform all the transactions from one place: your cell phone. Therefore, banks must necessarily modernize and change all their processes in order to be attractive for the new generations, "says the director.
According to the consultant who helps companies to innovate by transforming their processes, 20% of the global payments market is already of the fintech, although the loan sector still remains in the hands of banks.
"Banks will end up adapting to this new world of digital payments and will offer their own bill processing solutions," says Gastón Cerf of the Trial Panel consultancy.
"But we must also do a very large educational work, because there are still people who question and distrust the simple use of a home banking or are those who collect a retirement or a salary withdraw all funds," he acknowledges.
In this scenario, banks are on the way to making digital transformations in their structures, processes and products, digitizing them in their majority.
On the other hand, they dabble in being their own fintechs and compete with each other, before they are threatened by new companies, or build their own investment funds and invest in several fintech products.
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