Argentine Central Bank Defers Effective Date of QR Codes Interoperability and of ‘Pull’ Transfers

On November 30, 2023, the Argentine Central Bank (BCRA) issued Communique "A" 7905, extending the deadline of certain resolutions. On the one hand, it extended the term for complying with the obligation in Communique A 7841, which had established that the only flow that financial institutions and payment service providers offering payment accounts (PSPCPs) can provide to their clients for funding their accounts when there is withdrawal of funds from other accounts (bank or payment) is the immediate ‘pull’ transfer system.

For this, the BCRA provided that those clients using recurrent DEBIN to fund their accounts as of December 31, 2023 must switch to the new system before March 1, 2024.

However, for those users who have never funded their accounts by withdrawing funds from other accounts held with other providers, the deadline to comply with the obligation is sooner. As of January 1, 2024, these customers may only deposit funds through the 'pull' transfer system.

Further, the effective date of the obligation in point 10 of Communique "A" 7769 was deferred again: the BCRA postponed for two months the deadline for companies offering merchants the possibility of accepting credit card payments through QR codes to make them interoperable, so that these codes can accept card payments from any digital wallet in the system.