The Regulatory Projection and Financial Regulation Studies Unit - URF of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, submitted to comments and published on its website until September 14, 2018 the document called "Study on Low Value Payment Systems and its regulation”. In this document, the URF proposes the renewal of the regulation that governs low-value payment systems – known by its acronym SPVB, to adjust them to new international standards consistent with a new digital economy that put electronic commerce and participants who are part of it.

…payment gateways…intermediary companies between the business establishment and the payer that fulfill the function of delivering a response to the validation of the operation. Precisely one of the participants in the structure of the digital payment system and which is taking a leading role due to its influence and the benefits that its work brings to the market, are the so-called payment gateways, defined in the document cited above as providers of payment services and by the Banco de la República, in a slightly more precise definition, as intermediary companies between the business establishment and the payer that fulfill the function of providing a response to the validation of the operation.

Payment gateways as actors in the payment chain work under two models: the getway model in which the associated business uses the platform to facilitate payment and by operation of the SPBV, the money resulting from the transaction is received directly from the bank payer in the merchant's bank account; and the aggregator model, in which the payer's money is credited directly to the payment gateway accounts and from there, through a dispersion process carried out by the gateway, it is credited to the account of the subscribed merchants.

Those who are not very familiar with electronic commerce frequently ask the reason and the difference in choosing one or another model for the creation of their e-commerce. It should be borne in mind that the getway model is useful when the company has transactional rates previously negotiated with banks and gateway services are required as a technological solution to facilitate the use of payment methods by customers. In the aggregator model, on the other hand, the agreements and transaction fees are negotiated directly by the platform and all merchants registered in the gateway can benefit from these fees.

After understanding the function of each model, it is not difficult to measure the importance that in a growing digital economy, with e-commerce figures also growing, it represents an aggregating model for small and medium-sized companies, it is a double benefit: first , because of the comfortable acquisition rates and second, because they facilitate digitization and online presence.

The URF considered it necessary for the gateways that operate under getway models to be supervised indirectly through supervised entities that administer the payment system. The URF considered it necessary for the gateways that operate under getway models to be supervised indirectly through supervised entities that administer the payment system, a decision that became a reality with the guidelines enshrined in circular 008 of 2018, and that the gateways that operate under aggregating models were supervised by the acquiring entities.

The supervision will focus on verifying that the gateways have personal data protection management systems, control procedures for the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism and on the management of operational risk and risk of managing public resources. Regarding these last two risks, the following regulatory proposals are brought: the requirement to establish an insurance policy to protect the resources that are subject to dispersion; o the constitution of an autonomous patrimony for the administration of the resources; and term of transfer of resources from the footbridge to the commerce without surpassing the thirty days. …in the case of enterprises, the decision to impose requirements for the constitution of autonomous assets does not seem appropriate to us Faced with these regulation proposals, we can say that the use of the insurance policy seems very appropriate, and not only appropriate but adapted to the needs of small and medium-sized companies that, as they report growth, will be able to proportionally expand the coverage of the policy.

On the other hand, in the case of enterprises, the decision to impose requirements for the constitution of autonomous assets does not seem appropriate to us due to their high operating costs in relation to the type of transactions handled by SPBVs. Lastly, in that refers to the transfer of resources without exceeding thirty days, the rules that the commercial code brings for the mandate contract could be delved into, which, among others, are used by most of these gateways for the execution, management of payments and operations with the registered businesses, since this type of regulation, from our point of view, would be sufficient to reinforce the use of the policy.