translated from Spanish: Mario de Armas, international director of payments for Walmart: “Four-part payment damages people’s well-being”

Currently in Chile, credit card payments are made through a three-part system: the buyer, through their credit or debit cards, makes a payment through Transbank machines, which send the transaction to the TRANSB itself. Ank, who is responsible for affiliating the trades to a payment network. In turn, it sends the transaction to the bank, who authorizes the payment to the seller if the account of the buyer has balance.
But since April of this year the Minister of Finance, Felipe Larraín, announced his intentions to reform this system through work tables to make it a four-part system. This would add a new part to the model, which would go between the bank in question and the acquirers (currently only transbank in Chile), which in turn would generate competition among the acquirers so that the businesses have more freedom of choice.
Not all voices from the trade support the idea. Mario de Armas, Walmart’s director of payments, comments that the four-part system would put a greater burden on shoppers. “. What happens is that all businesses have to charge to cover the costs of accepting credit or debit cards. And you put this cost in the prices of things that are sold. If someone is buying-and no matter what it is with cash-, they are giving a subsidy to people who are buying credit cards. That’s the problem, prices are rising for everyone, “says weapons.
In turn, arms adds that in Europe, there are alternatives to the three-and four-part system. Open Banking is a two-party banking system: merchants and banks. With this, the customer allows the traders to use the funds they have in the account they have.
To remedy the situation, Walmart’s director of international payments believes that the model for reforming the current payment system should be on the same line as they took in Europe. “They did it in two phases. First: To regulate the credit and debit card rate, to minimize the damage to the social welfare of Europe and to entertain the subsidy that is giving the people who pay with cash to those who do it with cards. Second: Put a time limit to push them to develop a two-party system. ”
Omnicanalidad
One of the trends in e-commerce is the so-called Omnicanalidad, which is the confluence of all the existing channels in the market, both digitally and in person. In this regard, Mario says that Walmart hopes to distance itself from that trend: “This is not the strategy of Walmart: we want to offer the customer to buy what they want as they want, wherever and whenever they want. If you want in the stores, welcome, and if we can not put in our page an option to order from there. If you want someone to bring him in, someone can bring him. If you want to check the products with the car, you can do it too. ”

Original source in Spanish