How does a Transferencias 3.0 payment work?
The merchant shows a QR code, printed at a till or generated on a checkout page. The shopper scans it with any bank app or digital wallet and confirms. The money moves as an instant transfer from the shopper’s bank account (CBU) or payment account at a provider such as a wallet (CVU) to the merchant. The BCRA calls this a payment with transfer, or PCT. No debit card is required.
Funds arrive fast. Instant transfers in Argentina run every day, 24 hours a day, with crediting in at most 15 seconds, and the BCRA states that the merchant receives the funds immediately and irrevocably. Most PCTs start from a QR code: in August 2026, 99.1% did, and the rest were started with random keys or tokens.
Three kinds of participant make the scheme work: wallets, offered by banks or payment service providers; acceptors, which sign up merchants and generate their QR codes; and administrators, which run each payment scheme. Acceptors must be a payment service provider, a financial institution or a company serving financial institutions under BCRA supervision, and must be registered as a tax collection agent. A merchant therefore reaches the rail through an acceptor rather than directly.
Why does Transferencias 3.0 matter for merchants?
Interoperability is the core rule. The BCRA approved the programme in Communication A 7153, in force from 7 December 2020, and full QR interoperability started on 29 November 2021. Wallets may not refuse to read any acceptor’s QR code, and acceptors must open their codes to the whole ecosystem. Banks and providers that offer a wallet for QR transfer payments must be listed in the BCRA’s register of interoperable digital wallets.
Volumes are large and rising. In August 2026 the BCRA counted 118.3 million PCTs worth ARS 3 trillion, up 65.6% in number on a year earlier, of which 117.2 million were paid by QR. Shoppers paid from bank accounts (CBU) in 52.7% of QR payments and from payment accounts (CVU) in 47.3%. The BCRA’s register then listed 92 interoperable digital wallets and 67 PCT acceptors.
The economics favour the merchant. The shopper never pays a commission. The BCRA’s Transfers 3.0 page gives a merchant price range of 6 to 8 per thousand, plus VAT. Compare that with credit card sales, which banks may take 5 to 18 business days to pay out under BCRA rules.
The same QR can carry cards. Under Communication A 8303, a QR provided by a card acquirer that also accepts PCT must take both on the same code, and a wallet that lets users pay by card through QR must work with every acquirer’s codes. For card payments started this way, the wallet bears fraud liability unless it used the card scheme’s tokenisation and authentication standards or the parties agreed otherwise.
What can go wrong?
Payments cannot be pulled back. Once the merchant receives the funds there is no reversal, so a refund is a new transfer from the merchant to the shopper, and errors need to be caught before the shopper confirms.
Online flows can stall. A QR on a desktop checkout needs a second device, and a shopper who never confirms leaves an open payment that the merchant must expire.
Pull payments are limited. BCRA rules allow pull transfers only when the same customer sends and receives the request, so a merchant cannot debit a shopper’s account on its own initiative, and recurring billing usually relies on cards or direct debit.
How would Omno handle Transferencias 3.0?
Omno would treat QR transfers as an asynchronous method. A provider acting as acceptor would generate the QR, and the payment would stay pending until that provider confirms the credit by webhook, the source of truth for releasing an order. Routing rules set by the merchant would choose between acceptors. If a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment moves to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. Pay-outs to a recipient’s CBU or CVU, such as a marketplace seller payout, would follow PSP eligibility rules, and the routing-decision log would record which provider handled each payment.