Amendments to National Payments System, Payment Service Providers and FX

The Argentine Central Bank (BCRA) enacted several amendments through Communique “A” 6948, dated March 28, 2020

Related to the National Payments System, the BCRA clarified that direct debits must always be ordered by legal entities, with certain limited exceptions.

An addition is made to the operational instructions section to clarify that financial institutions must provide their clients with electronic channels through which they can order non-payment orders, subscriptions and debit reversals.

The BCRA ordered that Payment Service Providers (“PSP”) who offer payment accounts must allow their clients to issue and receive transfers of funds to and from bank accounts, their own payment accounts and other PSP’s accounts using the Uniform Virtual Code (Clave Virtual Uniforme) as an identifier, whenever available. Likewise, when such transfers are made through payment schemes with immediate accreditation, PSPs may not impose additional delays.

Amendments to FX regulations enacted by the BCRA now allow cash withdrawals made abroad with debit cards to be debited from clients’ local accounts denominated in pesos, in which case such withdrawal will be considered as a creation of external assets (i.e. FX for investment purposes) by the Argentine resident within the equivalent of USD 200 monthly limit. Financial institutions must allow clients to remotely select the account from which funds extracted with their debit card abroad will be debited from, taking the foreign currency denominated account as the default account.

Additionally, local credit and/purchase cards issuers may grant their clients abroad cash advances for a maximum of USD 50, in the case of neighboring countries, and USD 200 in the case of other countries.

Moreover, transfers of foreign currency abroad made to money-order companies’ accounts by individuals from their local foreign-currency-denominated accounts for up to the equivalent of USD 500 per month were added to the list of permitted exchanges and arbitrages. For this purpose, they must have a client's Affidavit that the transfer is intended to collaborate with the maintenance of Argentine residents who have had to remain abroad by virtue of the measures adopted in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lastly, financial institutions are required to mail newly issued debit/credit/purchase cards to financial users, adopting the required security measures.