Mexico is waiting for Open Banking regulation. Chile is just applying its own Fintech Law, and Colombia and Peru are developing interoperable payment regulations. These are all issues that drive the regularization of the digital financial industry in the region and that requires coordination between industry actors to move forward on the same path.
For this reason, for months, the representatives of the member countries of the Pacific Alliance have been working, together with the Spanish firm Minsait and the legal firm Dentons, on a document that allows them to define Open Finance standards for the exchange of information that serve as the basis for the development of the sector in the region.
Although it is true that each country individually promotes its own regulations, the idea “is to define standards that are homogeneous in the four countries, so that the implementation of Open Finance regulations can be more efficient, faster and have an impact on profitability. what the business is looking for,” he explained. Francisco Mora-Figueroa, global leader of Open Business at Minsait, in the America Connection space.
“There are common bases in these four countries from a legal construction point of view. We have similar institutions, on data protection issues there is a common vision, but what What remains is to see if we can also achieve specific rules in each of these countries that allow the connection of data and companies at the cross-border level,” added Ignacio Pera , partner of Dentons Chile.
“What we propose is not that every country be regulated in the same way, but that the best standards are obtained and that is the horizon,” he added.
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The vision of nations
Once we analyzed the current state of the market in terms of open finance and addressed the impetus given by the private sector to the public, especially regulators, to continue moving forward, the conversation turned focus on the challenges and what to expect next.
“The challenge is not that everyone is regulated the same, but that we are all converging on common standards for how we do local regulation,” Pera said.
He included me Mora assured that “next year will be the year of the definition of standards, the beginning of payments and the integration.” “In the same way, we need to work hard on the models of how all this will be profitable,” he added.
For his part, Ernesto Calero, general director of Fintech Mexico, considered that “The big challenge is to achieve regulation in each of our countries and then make these regulations similar, based on certain principles and standards, with a view to achieving interoperability”.
“The ultimate vision and purpose, as a challenge, is to include Open Data in the discussion,” as an added value that includes more than just the banking industry, he said. Ángel Sierra, executive director of FinteChile.
The study revealed that fintech and delivery are the industries that will grow the most in 2023“Not only the financial system and the banks, but we also have telcos, retail, highways, clinics, insurance companies, etc., that can It allows us to have more complete financial services and non-banking value propositions,” he added.
Developments bring them challenges. This was answered in the panel by Gabriel Santos García, executive president of Colombia Fintech, who recognized the need that, while progress is made in interconnection, it must also be done in the protection of the ecosystem.
“That this protection does not mean a reduction in innovation in the countries we represent. That there are regulations that take into account the size of the participants in the ecosystem, in cybersecurity and data protection, but that policies cannot be a spoke in the wheel for innovation,” he said.
Finally, in the vision of Roberto Vargas, president of the Fintech Association of Peru, the ultimate reason for coordination is “a financially integrated Pacific Alliance to generate daily savings for millions of people. “We will talk about a good strategy to get millions of Latin Americans out of extreme poverty,” he concluded.
