The trade has become a great troubled river in which the profit is taken by non-traditional players, who progressively gain greater relevance in the financial ecosystem.
Just as in the United States bigtech Google, Apple and Amazon have their own virtual wallets, the undisputed leader of the Southern Cone is Mercado Libre, which not only increases its presence in the fintech sector, but also in ecommerce.
Given this scenario, credit cards are redoubling efforts to remain relevant in the new forms of payment proposed by the digital economy.
Benefited by electronic commerce, which next year will equate to traditional participation according to experts, bet on new technologies to be the obligatory step of digital transactions and bite a piece of this cake.
In this context, Mastercard is the one that leads the move in Argentina. Not only more than a year ago he began his migration to contactless, but also sealed alliances with fintech, including MercadoLibre, to expand into the region.
Visa lags behind in the issue, as does American Express. But they began to heat engines: Prisma, the company that brings together brands such as the Banelco ATM network and TodoPago virtual wallet, is in the process of printing plastics for the main entities.
In addition, Visa and American Express took their first steps in the Fintech world with two digital banks approved by the BCRA: the first is the official Brubank card, commanded by Juan Bruchou, former president of Citi; while Amex will print its logo on Rebanking plastics, which will be launched this year by Grupo Transatlántica.
By virtue of benefits, the "premium" credit card seeks a place in the digital ecosystem and provides benefits to its clients, who, like those of its rivals, look for the payment solutions that the digital economy fuels.
There are no two without three
In silence, American Express is deploying its digital strategy with various players in the sector so as not to lose ground to its two classic rivals.
"We have been working together with fintech and new players in the market, as well as in the forums of the Argentine Chamber of Electronic Commerce (CACE) and the Central Bank, collaborating in different projects, such as Debin and QR Pagos", reveals Paula Ramos Mejía, Account Development Manager of American Express.
Since November, the company has signed agreements with Mercado Libre to boost both the mobile payments with QR and ecommerce segments, two growing trends in the digital economy.
"At the end of 2018 we launched a QR payments campaign with MercadoLibre in which we granted a 25% discount to the members who paid with our cards on Fridays and Saturdays, we had excellent results and today we are exporting this initiative to other markets such as Mexico and Peru ", adds Ramos Mejía to iProUP.
At this point, the firm keeps the rebate in effect on those days of the week for consumers who pay with the application of Mercado Pago until May 31 in stores of the gastronomic category.
Another of those efforts was the possibility that American Express customers won Mercado Puntos, the Mercado Libre loyalty program that offers benefits such as free shipping.
For this they had to buy in the e-commerce platform, recharge the SUBE or pay with QR with Mercado Pago. It was a success: the points in play during April sold out 10 days before the end of the promotion.
Its "fintech plan" also includes an alliance with Increase, a startup accelerated by Wayra, Telefónica's investment arm, which offers retailers solutions to control and manage sales with cards in their physical and online channels.
In addition, American Express is committed to the expansion of contactless, the technology for credit and debit credentials that is based on the following pillars:
- The customer supports the card on the reader to pay, without having to deliver it to a third party.
- The plastic has a chip with encrypted data that allows not to "clone" the card.
- The operation does not require the presentation of the DNI. Neither the issuance of the coupon nor the signature of the client in operations of up to $ 1,000.
- The cards can be "virtualized" in an electronic wallet, allowing to pay when placing the cell phone over the terminal.
"It's in this year's roadmap, we're working with First Data, Prisma and the main businesses in the certification of terminals for reading contactless," the executive remarks to iProUP.
Prisma, which has the license to print plastics from Visa, Mastercard and American Express, announced to iProUP that its plan to expand the contactless system would privilege first Visa and then the rest of the brands.
As a result, American Express plastics could begin to be distributed from the middle of this year, although the company does not risk a date.
At this time, the firm is conducting a strong educational campaign among employees to use the new forms of payment and understand their operation. "It is very important that the whole company thinks digitally," concludes Ramos Mejía.
On going
Mastercard "first" last year to its competitors when it launched the contactless cards, taking advantage of the "siesta" of its competitors.
"Last year, he lost a mandate to the whole region to migrate plastics to contactless, Visa has 'fallen asleep', which he did only this year," reveals to iProUP a high-ranking source from one of the country's most important private banks.
In total, the signature of the two circles accumulates about 500,000 accounts "without contact" in Argentina, a level still "low" for the tens of millions that make up its plastics park.
To explain the phenomenon, a market source tells iProUP that there are few banks that still adhered to this move and those that did limited the distribution of new plastics to customers with premium packages or their own employees.
In any case, the sector expects the "boom" in technology to take place this year, with the arrival of Visa and American Express. That is why Mastercard uses its advantage with the "Contactless Week", a promotion that renews every month with discounts of between 25 and 30 percent in service stations, supermarkets and other businesses.
Meanwhile, First Data and Prisma, the country's two largest acquisition (payment processing) companies, are focusing their efforts on bringing collection terminals to the largest possible number of merchants.
The American was the one that made the strongest movement so far and in November announced its commitment to the Argentine market. In fact, it will be the first country in Latin America and fifth in the world (after the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom) in which the firm will introduce its Clover terminals.
These charging devices are the most advanced on the market: they have touch screens, Wi-Fi and 3G Internet connection and compatibility with magnetic stripe cards, with chip and contactless.
They also have software to monitor sales, manage personnel data and support the installation of apps to extend the functionalities of the team based on the information generated in transactions.
With a million-dollar bet, First Data expects to reach 200,000 adhered businesses and for this it launched an ambitious campaign: Accepters, an online community of SMEs in which, through training, it promotes its terminals.
For its part, Prisma is also taking its devices to stores. According to Agustin Parodi, manager of Acquirer Products of the Media Division of the firm, they consist of a "touch screen computer where the customer will support the card".
"On the one hand, we target high impact businesses in perception and communication, such as large chains, and those that would be better served by the daily use of contactless, such as supermarkets and service stations," explains the manager.
Bye cards?
The contactless revolution promises not only to speed up purchases, but to avoid having plastic on them thanks to its "virtualization".
In a few words, the credit or debit card information can be encrypted and stored in a virtual wallet to support the cell phone at the payment terminals when paying. For this, it will be necessary to have a phone that has an NFC chip, capable of emulating the communication of a contactless card before the device.
"American Express has this technology and we are working to bring these tools to the Argentine market," says Ramos Mejía, who declined to give more details until the service is ready to be launched in the country.
Mastercard, on the other hand, pursues another objective so that all Argentines operate under the "no contact" system.
"An important factor in the industry is to incorporate the transport for the acceptance of the card instead of the SUBE.We want to integrate all the means of payment solutions in one place", anticipates Martin Lang, president of the Argentine subsidiary, iProUP .
The manager recognizes that the company is strongly committed to strengthening its platform and technology to be a protagonist in electronic commerce, since it projects that its use curve "will intersect with that of physical commerce next year or next."
For its part, Visa announced the arrival of its VisaNet network in the country, with which it analyzes boosting charges from cell phones, cars and smart watches. Even the appliances can be used to pay purchases in a non-contact manner.
"In the near future, Visa users and businesses will access more sophisticated services, such as digital wallets, direct payments between people and new solutions, such as the use of tokens for connected devices," explains the company.
Likewise, the company opened this platform globally to independent programmers to enable them to develop payment solutions that are "embedded" in any type of device connected to the Internet.
The table is served. The three major credit cards in the world started their digital transformation in the country. It only remains that the businesses begin to accept these means of payment in a massive way and the banks renew their park of cards so that consumers also participate in the contactless party.
