At the request of the Central, Mercado Libre once again enables Visa payments made in its QR through MODO

The last battle between Mercado Pago and the banks for interoperability of QR payments entered a waiting time. By Central interventionat midnight on Monday the fintech of Marcos Galperin lifted the “restriction” which was in effect since Friday for purchases made with the MODO wallet through Visa in its own QR.

This means that users from this Tuesday they can pay normally again and that interoperability, which seemed to have been broken last weekend, is working again.

Mercado Pago’s decision was not announced to users and it arrives after a informal meeting with the Central Bank and of a strong Visa request.

The card brand had alleged over the weekend that the measure taken by MELI, “arbitrary and unilateral” From the banks’ point of view, it took away “the freedom of Visa users to pay how they prefer, where they prefer and when they prefer, in a completely secure manner. Furthermore, has caused and continues to cause Visa reputational damage and materials that we are still quantifying. That is why we ask those responsible for this situation to reverse it immediately, since it affects people and businesses.”

As far as he could know Clarionthis truce does not mean that the underlying problem is resolved. With crossed accusations, both Mercado Pago and MODO speak of an iIncreasing cases of fraud and chargebacks since full interoperability was established.

But that’s not all: banks believe that this new Mercado Pago offensive is driven by a decision by the company not to open the payments ecosystem and maintain what they call a “closed circle” within the unicorn ecosystem.

The Central’s intervention was key: the organization told the players that this decision did not comply with the interoperability standard that the monetary authority has been promoting, with much resistance from fintech, for some years. As it was agreed to lift this restriction while other terms and conditions are negotiatedthe organization chaired by Santiago Bausili did not have to move forward with administrative measures or sanctions.

Last Friday morning, Mercado Pago surprised its users and the rest of the financial system by reporting that “transactions that do not meet a tokenization requirement” (data encryption) would not be processed.

In this way, blocked payments made with Visa flag credit cards that came from bank wallets and announced: “Until now, card payments made in Mercado Pago QR from the apps of different banks present a very high level of ignorance or fraud, above the limit set in the agreement.”

In MODE They were not left behind and on the same day they went to Mercado Pago precisely because of the level of fraud and chargebacks that are generated in operations processed from their QR.

“We observed that indeed the Mercado Pago QRs have a level of chargebacks that is vastly higher than all the rest of the market QRs with which we operate, together. Mercado Pago points to digital wallets. From MODO, which allows its users to make payments with cards in practically all of the rest of the QRs on the market since their inception at the end of 2020, we observe that the anomaly occurs on the Mercado Pago side,” the wallet explained and pointed out that the lack of knowledge of payments originating in the MELI QR They are 1800 times greater than with other QRs.

MODO maintains that many of these lacks of knowledge occur from the side of the acquirer, for lack of control of Mercado Pago. “We detected the registration of ‘businesses’ that have had their CUIT blocked in AFIP for several years, with names consisting of insults and that have a chargeback rate equal to or close to 100% (all or almost all transactions are then unknown), among many other obvious behaviors,” MODO pointed out.

“Secondly, the expenses made in Mercado Pago QR with credit cards are informed by said company in a confusing and non-transparent mannerwhich motivates ignorance of transactions by users when reviewing the summary of their consumption. This prevents users from being able to correctly identify their consumption and have clear control of your financeswhich ultimately leads to them not knowing their expenses,” he warned.

In strict off, Sources from the financial sector explained that Mercado Pago’s intention is that banks take charge of cases of ignorance and chargebacks for businesses and users. The entities are interested in the payment system remaining “open and interoperable” so negotiations will continue.