Argentine fintech teams had welcomed the likelihood that, for the primary time, staff may deposit their salaries into digital wallets. Nevertheless, lawmakers eliminated the supply, a transfer extensively seen as favoring conventional banking pursuits.
Throughout negotiations to safe broader assist for the invoice, President Javier Milei’s get together agreed to exclude the article, regardless of polls indicating that a big majority of Argentines want the liberty to decide on the place their salaries are deposited.
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Mistrust In Banks Drives Pockets Adoption
Argentine legislation immediately stipulates that staff should deposit their salaries into conventional financial institution accounts. Regardless of that legislation, digital pockets adoption in Argentina has soared over the previous few many years.
Partly, that progress displays restricted entry to banking. A 2022 Central Financial institution survey discovered that solely 47% of Argentines had a checking account, a niche largely pushed by longstanding mistrust of conventional programs.
Many years of economic instability, together with the 2001 “corralito” deposit freeze, persistent inflation, and repeated restrictions on entry to funds, have eroded public belief in banks and accelerated a shift towards money and dollar-denominated financial savings.
In response, fintech-run digital wallets, operated by non-bank fee service suppliers, have expanded entry to monetary companies throughout Argentina.
En el mundo, las billeteras virtuales se usan principalmente para pagos y, en segundo lugar, para crédito, con una baja incidencia de saldos transaccionales significativos en moneda fiat, que suelen permanecer en cuentas bancarias tradicionales.
Argentina es una excepción: el…
— Federico Dominguez (@fededomin) February 10, 2026
Platforms akin to Mercado Pago, Modo, Ualá, and Lemon now rank among the many most generally used. Many customers with out entry to conventional financial institution accounts depend on these apps as their first level of entry into the formal digital monetary system.
That’s why fintech leaders welcomed a provision that may have allowed Argentines to deposit their salaries immediately into digital wallets. Nevertheless, the article was reduce out of the proposed labor reform earlier than it was even debated in Congress.
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”The exclusion of Article 35 from the labor reform eradicated the likelihood for Argentinians to freely select the place to obtain their wage. In observe, the duty to channel salaries via conventional banks was maintained, following robust strain from the sector.
Nevertheless, residents have already demonstrated their choice: practically 75% of transfers in Argentina are made via CVUs, utilized by digital wallets. Tens of millions of individuals obtain their pay in banks solely as a result of the laws require it, after which switch their funds to fintechs looking for higher merchandise, decrease prices, and better returns,” Maximiliano Raimondi, CFO of Lemon advised BeInCrypto.
Political Commerce Off Favors Banks
Banking associations renewed their lobbying push this week. They despatched letters to key senators outlining their objections to permitting wage deposits into digital wallets.
They argued that digital wallets lack ample regulation, pose potential systemic dangers, and will deepen monetary exclusion.
“They do not have a regulatory, prudential or supervisory framework equivalent to that of banks and their approval would generate legal, financial, asset and systemic risks that would directly affect workers and the functioning of the financial system,” stated Banco Provincia, a number one Argentine financial institution, in a press release.
Fintech organizations pushed again, arguing that these claims had been false.
“All Payment Service Providers (PSPs) are regulated and supervised by the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA),” stated Lemon CFO Maximiliano Raimondi in a press release. “Digital wallets were the gateway to financial services for millions of people who were able to open a virtual account easily and free of charge, and access better financial solutions.”
A current examine by consulting agency Isonomía additionally discovered that 9 out of 10 Argentines wished the choice to decide on the place to deposit their salaries. The tendency was even stronger amongst impartial staff and those that work within the casual sector. The report additionally revealed that 75% of Argentines already use digital wallets every day.
Hoy millones de personas usan cuentas digitales todos los días. 📊 El 75% de las transferencias ya pasa por CVU. El salario es una de las pocas operaciones masivas donde esa libertad todavía no existe.
Desde la Cámara Argentina Fintech sostenemos que este debate no trata de… pic.twitter.com/EOMQ7NV5V4
— Cámara Argentina Fintech (@CamaraFintechAr) February 8, 2026
In the end, the banking sector prevailed earlier than the invoice reached a Senate vote. In accordance with stories, the federal government eliminated the supply to keep away from straining relations with banks and to enhance the invoice’s probabilities of securing closing approval.
