🧉Argentina🇦🇷: overview of the alternative finance market 2025 (wallets, crypto, interoperability)

🧉Argentina🇦🇷: overview of the alternative finance market 2025 (wallets, crypto, interoperability)

According to the Electronic Clearing House (#coelsa), Argentinians now hold an average of 8 financial accounts: 4 bank accounts (traditional or digital) and 4 linked to virtual wallets.

🔣 Scale and Reach

The payment systems of Argentina🇦🇷 and Brazil🇧🇷 have become regional benchmarks in financial innovation.

In Argentina, the fintech landscape stands out for its high competitiveness and strong territorial penetration, reflecting widespread adoption of digital payment solutions.

🔣 Interoperability and Regulation

Over the past decade, the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) introduced “aliases” — identifiers that enable instant transfers between banked and non-banked accounts. It also spearheaded the development of QR code payments, ensuring full interoperability across platforms.

Compared to 2024, QR transactions increased by 93.34%, consolidating their position as one of the most widely used payment methods in the country.

🔣 Investment and Savings Instruments

Persistent inflation and financial volatility over the past ten years have driven the emergence of in-app investment accounts, allowing users to earn returns on wallet balances.

According to the BCRA’s latest retail payments report, the number of investment accounts surged from 13.8 million in 2023 to 22.4 million in 2024.Currently, around 16 million Argentinians maintain this type of account.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Key update: under President Javier Milei, adolescents aged 13 and older are now legally allowed to invest in mutual funds, trade in the capital markets, and open foreign-currency savings accounts.

🔣 Crypto Landscape

Argentina hosts nearly 10 million crypto accounts integrated into its national payment network. When transferring funds to local exchanges, users effectively move Argentine pesos, not cryptocurrencies directly.

Currently, banks and traditional wallets are still prohibited from offering crypto assets. However, analysts suggest that this restriction could be lifted in the future, depending on macroeconomic conditions and regulatory progress.

🔣 Open Finance Outlook

Financial regulators have announced upcoming initiatives to promote Open Finance, aimed at expanding credit access— a crucial indicator of economic development.

In this area, Argentina still lags behind other leading Latin American economies.

🔣 Key Players

The main players in Argentina’s alternative finance ecosystem include #MercadoPago, Ualá, the crypto platforms Lemon and Bitso, and the digital payments app Personal Pay.

#news #Argentina #p2p #crypto #fintech

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