One year after having
prohibited banks from offering crypto assets
to their clients, the Central Bank came out to limit the offer of these digital investments made through virtual wallets.
The rule presented this Thursday aims to
discourage purchases of these digital assets,
favorites among Argentines
seeking to hedge against inflation and the jump in the dollar.
Through communication A7759, the organization's Board of Directors replicated the premise that it had used in May 2022 to stop the offer of crypto from financial institutions and that
forced Banco Galicia,
one of the largest in size in the country,
to "return to back" with a launch
and disable this functionality.
In two paragraphs, the measure establishes that "the PSPCPs
will not be able to carry out or facilitate their clients
to carry out operations with digital assets –including crypto assets and those whose yields are determined based on the variations that they register–
that are not authorized by a
competent national regulatory authority or by the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic”.
What the Central Bank calls PSPCP are "payment service providers that offer payment accounts" or in Creole,
virtual wallets
that have already been forced to list within the agency.
Unofficially it was pointed out that this measure
targets big players
in this segment, such as
Ualá and Mercado Pago.
The first already offers this option to its clients in the country, while the fintech giant
has it available in other latitudes such as Brazil and Mexico
and with this rule it could not try to transfer this business to Argentina.
However, in the BCRA's Registry of Payment Service Providers,
other wallets also appear, such as Bitso, Buenbit, Lemon and Ripio,
which are what the industry calls
"native crypto"
and the ones that move the most volume in the market.
market.
This
caused confusion
in the sector and each of the companies, which
had not been alerted in advance
, had to carefully analyze the impact of the measure.
That was exactly what they responded in Ualá.
Meanwhile, Bitso informed its clients through its social networks: "Bitso is an international platform with a global presence. The custody and operations you do with your crypto are regulated
by European authorities
. The Central Bank ordered that payment service providers (PSP) will not be able to carry out or facilitate cryptocurrency operations for their clients from their applications or web pages.
Bitso is not a PSP
".
They used the same argument in
Lemon
: "Lemon is an international crypto app with a presence in several Latin American countries and the cryptocurrencies are guarded by Lanin Pay, a company based in El Salvador with a crypto license," they explained in their official account.
"The regulations published by the BCRA apply to registered payment providers (PSP) and prevent them from facilitating or enabling crypto operations from their applications and websites. Lemon Cash is not a PSP," they added.
On the downside, sources in the sector complained that the two paragraphs that the standard has
"are not clear"
and do not establish, among other things,
"deadlines to adapt"
.
At the same time, they explained that although these companies have a PSPPC registered in the Central, this
only serves to manage the weights of the clients and that they do not currently have scope for crypto operations.
Many believe that due to the gray areas that the brief regulation allows,
many companies in the sector can continue operating as before
.
However, there is a fear that the Central's ban will reach them and then, for example,
they should stop offering
the debit card purchase service in shops, which allow crypto to be "exchanged" for pesos when making consumption "in real life".
This is
one of the most exploited options by wallets
and the one that achieved the most adoption among Argentines.
And it is not a minor fact: many
freelancers who receive their salaries in dollars use crypto as a bridge to bring them to the country
and be able to spend them in Argentina
without going through the exchange market,
either the official or the parallel one.
In fact, on Thursday night, one of the first reactions of some of the players in this market was to wonder if this measure
would not be another layer to the increasingly hardened exchange rate trap.
tro affirmed: "This is a measure promoted by the bank lobby, which is smoking the Leliq and everything that is thrown at the Central to absorb pesos and
in return they are asking for things
. And what they asked here is to level the playing field, let's say , since they cannot offer crypto".
The Fintech Chamber, which brings together several of the companies in this sector, issued a harsh statement this Friday expressing "
deep concern and disagreement with this measure,
considering that it limits access to a technology that offers multiple benefits and opportunities for our society".
"Measures such as Communication "A" 7759 hinder and threaten progress and
the free choice of citizens
who seek alternatives to protect their purchasing power in a context of accelerated inflation,"
said the letter, which also invited the organization dialogue to review the implications of this decision.
NE
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