Latin America · GDP rank #23
Argentina
AR · ARS @ 0.0007140/USD
Two years into Milei-era reform, inflation has fallen from 211% (Dec 2023) to roughly 32% YoY (Apr 2026), the parallel-FX premium has collapsed, and the payments landscape is a three-way contest between Mercado Pago's incumbency, MODO's bank consortium, and a USD-stablecoin retail economy that has reached the second-largest per-capita base globally.
Tab 03
Rails & infrastructure
The instant rail, the RTGS spine, the card switch, the direct-debit scheme, and the country's CBDC stance. Each rail is reported with operator, launch year, and 2024 flow so the relative scale across rails is readable at a glance.
CBDC status is deliberately granular: live, pilot, preparation, live stalled, and sceptical, no pilot are different things.
BCRA under Milei-appointed leadership deprioritised CBDC work in 2024. The administration has been explicit that USD-stablecoin optionality is the preferred answer to a digital-money question. No retail or wholesale pilot is active.
Instant payments
Transferencias 3.0
The instant leg typically carries the vast majority of retail consumer flow in modern payment systems — and sits in direct tension with card networks and wallets for the same transactions.
- Operator
- Banco Central de la República Argentina / COELSA
- Live since
- 2020-12-15
Transactions · 2024
txns/year · 2025
Cleared value · 2024
ARS/year · 2025
Participating institutions
institutions · 2025
Alias registrations
accounts · 2025
Rail features
- ▌Mandatory QR interoperability under Comunicación A 8020 (April 2023)
- ▌Zero fee for consumers; merchant MDR 0.6-0.8% on QR-at-POS
- ▌Account-to-account unlimited; QR-at-POS capped at ARS 15m per transaction
- ▌CVU (virtual) and CBU (banking) accounts interoperate symmetrically
RTGS
Real-time gross settlement
The RTGS spine clears high-value interbank flow — including the settlement of the instant-rail cycles and card-network net positions. Transaction count is modest; cleared value is enormous.
Transactions · 2024
txns/year · 2025
Cleared value · 2024
ARS/year · 2025
Open banking
Regulatory and technical posture
- Regime
- No statutory open-banking regime; BCRA Comunicación A 8020 mandates QR interoperability for instant payments
Active CVU-CBU interoperability connections
institutions · 2025
Full reference