‘Export type pix’: instant payment becomes popular in Argentina with appreciated real – 07/16/2023 – Market

Next to boxes of alfajores and bottles of wine, a notice helps to capture the attention of Brazilian tourists in the center of the Argentine city of Puerto Iguazú: “We accept Pix”.

But this is not the only establishment to accept the instant payment that has become popular in Brazil.

In the municipality, which borders the city of Foz do Iguaçu in Paraná, several merchants have been accepting the Pix with an eye on the purchasing power of Brazilians and the real, while the Argentine peso loses value day by day with inflation that gallops to more than 100% per year.

“We cannot run the risk of losing Brazilian customers,” an Argentine saleswoman who declined to be identified tells the BBC and explained that she joined Pix even though she had to ask a friend with an account in Brazil for help to receive the money.

In other parts of the city, merchants said they used Pix through family accounts and even made Brazilian partners.

Now, what started as a “jeitinho” on the border has found an official path.

Since June, Pix can already be used in stores throughout the Argentine national territory, especially in tourist spots, on the initiative of a private Argentine digital payment platform that, in a way, anticipated the Central Bank’s official plan to export instant payments technology to neighbors.

The initiative was spearheaded by the company KamiPay, whose creators, who work with partners in Brazil, saw the influx of Brazilians in Argentina (they are the third largest group of tourists, after Uruguayans and Chileans, or 15% of total visitors) and the currency “complexity” of the local economy a business opportunity.

“Nobody carries wads of cash anymore, and in Brazil we have seen how common the use of Pix, the digital wallet”, tells BBC News Brasil Nicolas Enrique Bourbon, co-founder of KamiPay, which is negotiating to expand its “export-type Pix” as well for Uruguay and Mexico.

Through the platform, payment is made in reais by reading a QR Code, as in Brazil, and the use of blockchain technology streamlines operations so that Argentine businesses receive payment immediately.

“The Brazilian tourist who arrives here, with a tangle of quotations, is even confused”, adds Bourbon.

Argentina currently has at least five well-known dollar exchange rates. In the local press, it is speculated that they could reach 15.

The Central Bank of the Argentine Republic informs that there is only one exchange rate, that of the official dollar. However, on a daily basis, news portals inform other quotations, such as the blue dollar (parallel), the most popular for local use, MEP, defined by the financial market, and tourism, for example.

Last Friday (14), the official dollar was quoted at 277 pesos, the so-called blue dollarThe almost 520 pesos, and the tourist, 554 pesos. In the exchange that has the blue dollar as a reference, the value of the real was quoted at around 100 pesos.

In this sense, if the Brazilian tourist uses his credit card to make payments, he will pay a much less advantageous rate — something that makes cash, even in a pile of bills, the preferred choice.

Hence the appeal of KamiPay, which, to attract customers, offers traders and customers prices regulated by the blue dollar.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina showed, without directly quoting Pix, that it recognizes the system brought to the country by the private sector.

In a recent statement, he informed that “tourists will be able to pay with electronic wallets at a type of exchange that will have financial dollars as a reference”.

REAL POPULARITY

Merchants interviewed by BBC News Brasil see Pix as a positive alternative for quickly transferring money to their accounts and as a way not to lose out to inflation.

In June, Argentine inflation rose 6%. In the first five months of the year, the official index accumulated a rise of 50.7%. In 12 months, between May 2022 and May 2023, inflation reached 115.6%.

Mariana Dappiano, an Argentine businesswoman in the fashion business, says that she decided to join Pix by even placing a sticker that signals the availability of the payment method in the window of her store in the Palermo neighborhood.

“We understand that for tourists it is very stressful to come shopping with a lot of pesos. Pix is ​​something new here, we were offered it and we accepted it immediately to add a friendly experience for the Brazilian consumer”, says Dappiano, who does business in several countries.

According to the merchant, a customer has already used Pix for shopping, but, with the winter holidays and the expectation of an increase in Brazilian tourism, she believes that the payment method will have more fans.

“It’s still something very new, but with growth potential, without a doubt.”

From Mendoza, one of the wine producing poles and usual destination for Brazilian tourists, representatives of the wine sector interviewed by BBC News Brasil say they are unaware of the existence of Pix, but confirm the popularity of the real.

“What we see here are Brazilians with reais or dollars, exchanging in parallel, and leaving with a pile of pesos to pay for consumption”, says a press officer for the wine sector in Mendoza.

In tourist spots in the city of Buenos Aires, such as in small markets in the Recoleta neighborhood and bars in San Telmo and Palermo, it is possible to pay the bill in reais, receiving change in pesos.

In the windows of stores in the city center, information on the exchange rate for the real has also become commonplace, a sign that more merchants are accepting the Brazilian currency.

“We understand that it is often more practical for Brazilian tourists to pay in real. That’s why we accept it”, says seller Jorge Salas, from La Chopperia bar, in Palermo.

REAL X YUAN

The current economic crisis in Argentina includes, in addition to the devaluation of the peso and inflation, the shortage of currency (in dollars) in the Central Bank’s reserves — mainly affected by the historic drought that drained the dollars generated by exports from the agricultural sector of the country.

Therefore, in the country that learned to think in dollars because of the chronic economic crisis, the American currency is still dominant, but there are other experiments in progress.

In addition to the greater acceptance of the real, there is the arrival of the Chinese currency, the yuan, which makes the movement gain the air of a geopolitical dispute.

Since last week, the Argentine Central Bank has authorized the opening of bank accounts in Chinese currency shortly after the government signed an agreement in Beijing that allowed Argentina to receive US$ 10 billion (R$ 48 billion) to reinforce the country’s reserves .

The same shortage of dollars makes President Alberto Fernández seek an agreement with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so that Brazilian companies can be financed to export to Argentina.

The arrangement with Brazil, however, is under negotiation, according to Argentine government sources.