New Methods for Paying with USD and Payment Accounts

On January 16, 2025, the Argentine Central Bank (BCRA) issued Communication “A” 8180, to enable businesses to accept payments with debit cards in USD and to introduce the possibility of paying goods and/or services in installments through payment accounts.

Firstly, regarding debit card payments, the BCRA expanded the application scope of several rules related to QR payments of the unified text “Argentine Payment System - Payment Services” to this type of payment, both in ARS and USD.

Before Communication 8180, regulation of payments with QR and interoperability applied only to credit card payments and transfers, when the acquirer or aggregator also acted as an acceptor of transfer payment (see our article). From now on, this interoperability is extended to debit cards. This means that the same QR that enables accepting credit card payments should enable debit card payments.

The Communication also extends the right of interoperable digital wallets to charge fees to card issuers when their users pay with debit cards from their platform. Accordingly, fees for interoperable digital wallets are not limited to payments with credit cards. All these measures must be implemented before April 1, 2025.

Secondly, as of February 28, 2025, suppliers (financial institutions, digital wallets, acquirers, aggregators, and acceptors) must ensure that debit card payments in USD are available to merchants who wish to accept this payment method. In this way, merchants will be able to offer their customers the possibility of paying in USD using their usual debit cards. This measure will not require printing new plastics, since pre-existing plastics will incorporate this feature. At the time of the transaction, customers will be able to select the payment currency from the POS terminal.

These initiatives of the BCRA seek to encourage the use of USD in the economy and offer greater flexibility in financial transactions, adapting to current market needs.

Regarding the second item in the Communication, the BCRA incorporated the “scheduled” DEBIN as a subspecies of the Immediate Debit or DEBIN payment method.

DEBIN is a payment method executed through an online transfer in which the merchant initiates the process and the payer simply has to accept it. Once the request for payment is accepted, an amount is debited from the payer’s account (see our article on DEBIN). Until now, the BCRA had only regulated the recurring DEBIN (for successive payments and with general authorization, for example, for paying a monthly service) and the spot DEBIN (for one-time payments and with successive authorizations). Now, the regulation of the scheduled DEBIN enables paying the purchase of goods or services in installments through a payment account. This means that it is now possible to pay a fixed price in installments through a payment account.

Although the BCRA quotes the rules of the unified text “SINAP - Immediate Debit” to regulate the scheduled DEBIN, it sets out some specific parameters for this new DEBIN mode. Among others, the BCRA established that:
 

1. the number of installments and their amount will be fixed and established in advance,
2. each payment plan must be individually adhered to,
3. before the first installment is processed, the financial entity or payment service provider offering payment accounts that receives the debit request must have the express authorization of the receiving customer confirming the details of the transaction.