A little less than a month before the end of the scheduled period to register the SUBE card and thus avoid paying the "full rate" with the increase that will begin to apply for transportation in April, and in the midst of long lines and complaints from users, the Government works hand in hand with the private sector to be able to add other forms of payment when traveling.
While the demand of the financial system is that the government "open" the SUBE system, a deputy from Together for Change presented this week a bill to eliminate the obligation for transport companies to charge with this system and allow the "universalization of payment methods".
In parallel, the private sector is working with the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to be able to
carry out a "pilot test" and include other forms of payment in the subways.
"From the Ministry of Infrastructure, improvements to mobility are constantly analyzed to benefit residents. One of them is the payment of public transportation service. Although in the country the SUBE is the accepted modality in almost all provinces, since The City is analyzing new payment modalities," they said in the Buenos Aires offices.
The bill
Damián Arabia
's proposal
is that "all
means of public transport by car, bicycle, surface and underground railway, passenger river and cableway
" adopt
NFC technology
to allow payment with credit, debit and prepaid cards.
In short, Saudi's initiative is to "add" new ways of paying to the one that has already been established and adopted since 2009.
"I started working on this proposal long before the problems with SUBE were put on the table. The idea was to take a
concept that is already used in a good part of the world
, where you can pay for different transportation services with NFC technology," said Arabia in dialogue with Clarín, where he also highlighted that the current SUBE system "is monopolistic."
"It is a closed system, controlled by Nación Servicios, and it is a very opaque box. For example, no one talks about the commissions that SUBE charges transport companies, which are 7% for each trip made," he stated. the legislator.
"With this proposal, the commissions that currently apply for payments by credit or debit card could be taken, which are 1.6% and 0.8% respectively. Even in areas with high traffic of people, these could be even lower "he assured.
Saudi spoke of the lack of new credentials as one of the reasons explaining the need to expand this system.
"Plastics are missing, they are not available. Furthermore, this is negative for inbound tourism, since visitors to Argentine cities are required to acquire this card to be able to travel on public transportation," she said.
In addition to presenting this project for subsequent discussion in the committees in Congress, Arabia held meetings with officials from different departments of the Executive Branch, as well as with companies and players in the private sector.
In fact, in the private sector conversations have been underway for some time, with this Government and the previous one, to be able to "expand" the system's payment options.
The points that are negotiated
"The talks are very advanced," they said in a very important payment system company at the local level and assured that from both a technical and economic point of view there are no major obstacles to moving towards this integration.
"This is more of a political decision," they said.
The financial system's proposal is in line with what Arabia proposes: leveraging on NFC (Near Field Communication) technology used by SUBE and which is present in most plastics
contactless
that banks and fintech offer to their clients, to allow them to charge directly with these cards.
According to VISA data, 85% of the plastics that the brand has active in the country have contactless technology.
To be able to pay with any card in the payment terminals of subways, trains and buses, an investment is required that could be made by the private sector, through a UTE (Temporary Business Union).
There are several technical issues that are not minor when thinking about other payment methods.
On the one hand, the SUBE card allows the segmentation of rates according to the user profile.
But it also allows the benefit of a discount for those users who use more than one means of transportation in the AMBA.
The issue is analyzed by the Ministry of Economy, in charge of the former Transportation portfolio reduced to secretariat in the current administration.
And also by the Central Bank, since it is in charge of regulating means of payment.
Sources from the monetary authority confirmed to this newspaper that "work is being done on this issue" although they did not provide more details.
The "pilot tests"
The idea, both of the ruling party and the private sector, is to imitate a model that is already present in several cities around the world.
A few weeks ago, the option to pay contactless was enabled in the Santiago de Chile metro.
In Argentina there are also other pilot tests of alternative systems to SUBE.
Last year, in the city of Paraná, Banco Nación together with Mastercad launched "SUBE Débito", a card to which money could be loaded both to pay for transportation and to buy in stores.
In the City of Buenos Aires, the possibility of charging via QR code was recently incorporated.
For a few months now, self-service terminals located in subway stations have allowed you to load the SUBE card with QR code, through different virtual wallets.