Following the incursion of Mercado Pago in the world of the Common Investment Funds (FCI), another fintech with a strong presence in the market began offering these products among its clients.
This is Ualá, founded and steered by Pierpaolo Barbieri, who added this alternative aimed at an audience more and more accustomed to the "4.0" signatures make him pay his pesos without having to immobilize them in a fixed term. In their plan to differentiate themselves from traditional banking and to add clients, most digital banks pay an interest rate for the balance in sight accounts and several of them advance in their strategy of offering common funds.
But the launch of the FCIs on its platform is not the only battlefront that Barbieri opened against the company of Marcos Galperín: whenever he can, the young businessman shows his disagreement over Mercado Pago's refusal to enable money transfers from that place to Ualá.
"It depends on them. Ask them to do it," he says, and redouble his bet by firing this phrase: "Mercado Pago, let's make a freer market." Consulted by iProUP, the fintech that depends on the ecommerce giant ensures that it is a matter of time for that operation that so much demands Ualá is enabled.
"We are working and one of our priorities is to finalize this development, so that there is interoperability between virtual wallets. In the coming weeks we will already be making it available for users, although in stages," they say.
As a defense, from the bigtech commanded by Galperin they emphasize that the integration of Mercado Pago to link any platform was always available. "Ripio did so, for example, the virtual currency platform, so that it can be paid with Mercado Pago," they exemplify.
"Actually, there is no interoperability of CVU," they shoot in the fintech sector. "While Mercado Pago receives immediate transfers from banks, from Mercado Pago to banks there are still no immediate transfers," they add.
Strictly speaking, it is something that has to do with the mechanisms of information between both actors. "For months the BCRA issued the standard. Just as Mercado Pago is already enabled to receive, they have to validate with COELSA (the clearing house) the messaging exchange to make their transfers also instantaneous," says a high source that closely follows the operation.
In the City they assure that the Galperín signature still faces inconveniences with COELSA to direct the transfers. And his argument is that the problem is with the banks, which fail to specify the transfer of funds. "They promised the Central that by the end of July they would have it operational and then they had to ask for an extension," says the sources.
Common funds for all
While he struggles on this front and exposes the obstacles of Mercado Pago to make transfers, Ualá ventured into the world of the FCI, an instrument that Galperín managed to bring to an audience that had never before had a competing account.
"With its pros and cons, Mercado Pago made popular, so to speak, the Common Investment Funds. It is also necessary to see how many of its clients read the fine print and knew what it was when they were promised a return on their balances ", they comment in the City.
Among the advantages is clearly the "democratization of savings and investment", as defined within Mercado Pago, on the grounds that they doubled the total number of people who invested in this tool. On the side of the cons, there is the commitment to financial assets (public securities) tied to the evolution of the markets that can take this bet to negative ground.
"The average profitability of the Fund is tied to the assets that compose it and is calculated based on the last 30 days. Currently it is 48%," they report from the Galperín firm.
Meanwhile, the one proposed by Ualá (in a closed test state for 10,000 users), allows channeling from $ 1, without a maximum limit and at a cost of 2%. Soon it will be available for its 1.2 million users. Its name is SBS Savings Pesos FCI and the rate of return is around 45%. "It will only invest in fixed-term deposits, sureties, money market funds and remunerated accounts," and from the firm clarify that "it will not have exposure in assets with market price risk."
The vision of digital banks
The policy of Barbieri and Galperin to offer their users the possibility of rendering them the money they maintain as a balance in their accounts is in line with the strategy of most digital banks. But, unlike fintech, they take deposits and for that reason they are regulated by the BCRA.
In fact, of the three digital ones in the country, Wilobank and Rebanking provide a return from the first day on the funds that their clients leave in these accounts. It was a marketing strategy designed to fight traditional banking and that is here to stay.
In return, Brubank was never interested in moving in this direction, and tries to make a difference by proposing a good price on the sale of dollars. And in the case of Digital Orange - which was released a few months ago -, for now it aims to provide free insurance on cell phones and the recharge of SUBE card.
"We launched Wilobank with the proposal to remunerate balances in a savings account," Guillermo Francos, president of the virtual entity that already has more than 73,000 accounts open, tells iProUP. "At the beginning, the difference between the savings account rate and the fixed term rate was not large, more or less half. Then the fixed term rate went up a lot," he adds.
When Wilobank went out to compete, the return for balance in savings banks was 20% per year and the return on deposits in the market was around 44%. Today, Eduardo Eurnekian's bank that commands Francos pays between 20% and 25% on the money in sight and about 64% per year for a placement.
According to Francos, as the gap between the two interest rates widened, the portion of fixed terms within the total deposits, which now represents two thirds of the funds, was gaining ground.
What's coming
Regarding the possibility of starting to offer FCI, such as Ualá and Mercado Pago, Francos points out that they have talked with many fund managers, but that the project is for later. The former director of the Province Bank acknowledges that "we have now concentrated on improving the platform and are dedicating resources to this objective."
"We have it in a folder and we have talked with not only administrators but also insurers, as well as to generate some connection API with them to offer their products," says Francos, since within the bank's roadmap there is also the idea of ââselling insurance .
The digital entity of the Transatlantic group, Rebanking, also since its launch opted to render the weights of the savings banks, making a concrete difference with their traditional counterparts that only pay an interest rate for the fixed terms.
"The response of the public is very positive, since it is not used to having money in sight generate interest," Stefano Angeli, CEO of Rebanking, tells iProUP. And he adds: "It's good that the new players in the market start offering it to educate the system about these new services."
In the entity, today they pay an annual 30%, which is calculated based on the daily averages of the month and is credited on the first business day of the following month.
"We have been very good at opening accounts, the number grew 126% last month and we are exceeding expectations," says the manager, who had the goal of reaching 50,000 customers before December, which could be completed before. Angeli gets into an intern with Mercado Pago and highlights the benefits of the paid savings account with respect to common funds. "Ours is better, since the rate is not variable, as it is in the FCI," he says.
"That happened to Mercado Pago, when the price of the bonds went down and the yield of the money placed was very volatile," Angeli adds. "In our case, the rate is insured and is always fixed," he compares.
However, it is increasingly common for fintech and digital banks to render the weights that their clients have in their accounts and, as Angeli says, they may end up "educating" the rest of the system at some point.
