ARGENTINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Santiago J. Mora, Nicolas Garfunkel, Milagros Caneda and May Steward, GPG Advisory Partners
Businesses related to the payments vertical are usually compensated through transactional commissions that are ultimately borne by the affiliated businesses. PSAVs frequently charge a fee for their services or include their earnings in the prices of the cryp - tocurrencies that can be purchased or sold on their platforms. Businesses related to lending verticals are com - pensated through the interest rate charged to the borrower. It is important to mention that case law exists that limits the interest applicable to loans when such interest is deemed excessive. In regtech undertakings and the provision of IT, as well as blockchain, and services to financial institutions and fintech companies, the compen - sation model is freely agreed between the par - ties (ranging from fixed amounts to variables per transaction). 2.4 Variations Between the Regulation of Fintech and Legacy Players While legacy players’ activity tends to be highly regulated and centralised mostly by the BCRA and the CNV, the regulation applicable to the fin - tech industry is more flexible and, as mentioned in 2.2 Regulatory Regime , there is no central - ised regulatory framework governing the entire fintech ecosystem. Nevertheless, the BCRA and the CNV do issue specific regulations on most of the verticals. Unlike financial institutions, in some cases, prior authorisation from a state agency is not required to carry out or operate a fintech business. There are also some distinctions from a tax per - spective between transactions carried out by or
through financial institutions and transactions carried out by or through fintech companies. However, it is likely that such distinctions will gradually disappear. 2.5 Regulatory Sandbox There is no regulatory sandbox in Argentina. However, in April 2022, the CNV launched an “Innovation Hub” aimed at those entities with service technology projects and/or innovative financial products that are linked to the capital market. This was to be the first step towards a possible CNV regulatory sandbox, which was ultimately not launched in 2023. Also, the Argentine Fintech Chamber, in col - laboration with the organisation Crecimiento, submitted a proposal to regulate the tokenisa - tion of real-world assets (RWA) through a sand - box. Regulatory agencies (BCRA, CNV and UIF) remain in constant communication with the Chamber and the organisation regarding the proposal and have shown interest in advancing it. 2.6 Jurisdiction of Regulators Just as fintech regulations are scattered (as mentioned in 2.2 Regulatory Regime ), so too is the jurisdiction of the regulators involved in The BCRA has jurisdiction over entities engaged in regular intermediation between the supply and demand of financial resources (financial insti - tutions) that fall within the scope of FEL. It is responsible for the regulation and supervision of monetary policy, credit policies and exchange control regulations. In addition, the BCRA has competence in payments and can expand the sector. The BCRA
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