monopoly? Foreign ‘Fintech’ files complaint with Banco de Portugal against SIBS – Observer

The official added that the Administrative Coordination Committee “stressed the importance of ensuring that there are no obstacles in accessing bank data, and we stressed the importance of fully expediting the existence of sandboxes that promote innovation and that have requirements commensurate with their activity”, i.e. the specific spaces in which small businesses can be given the right to operate with lower regulatory requirements, compatible with their “primary” dimensions.

Finally, AdC also says it has “promoted technology neutrality in public procurement, so that new entrants can also have the opportunity to evolve.” Margarida Matos Rosa did not make that link, but in this thread stands out the IVAucher platform, which appears to be run by SIBS but ended up with SIBS not going to the contest (the searches were a few weeks ago) and the contest was won by the only competitor, Saltpay , owner of Pagaqui.

Early in 2018, in relation to the MBWay system, the Director General of Payments and Market Infrastructure at the European Central Bank, Marc Bale de Jesse, publicly criticized SIBS for launching and promoting an internal card-based platform, when “We must focus all our efforts on finding pan-European solutions“.

This was a “pulling ears” during a conference of the Bank of Portugal, in the middle of the Museum of Money – an event where, in addition to the head of SIBS, Maddalena Cascais Tommy, then director of Novo Banco Vitor Fernandez was also a speaker, and his appointment as president of Banco de Fomento was suspended by the government (but he remained so President from SIBS, after replacing Vítor Bento a few months ago).

In response to a representative of the European Central Bank, the head of SIBS downplayed the criticism, emphasizing that For MBWay users it’s exactly the same Whether the service depends on your card or something else – “People want to be able to make transfers and payments instantly and securely”. However, the ECB’s view was not about the quality of the service but rather the closed system and ownership that was in its infancy – a service inaccessible to anyone without a Portuguese bank account card.

BCE came to Lisbon to “pull its ears” because of MBWay

However, the problems reported in the complaint to Banco de Portugal go beyond MBWay. Any company wishing to enter the Portuguese market, in order to provide alternative payment solutions, should always interact with SIBS, given its presence in the market. This interaction is usually marked with “complete ambiguity” NS “opacity”, refers to the company that submitted the complaint to Banco de Portugal.

This Friday, while presenting the results of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the Observer questioned the president of the bank, SIBS’ largest shareholder, with 21.6% of the company. Paulo Macedo He began by highlighting, first of all, that “SIBS is a cooperative, in which Portuguese banks work together to reduce their costs” and, from this perspective, “the biggest threats to SIBS livelihoods – on which I think we all agree have made an important contribution to the country, Technologically – that is, if several banks left the company’s capital.

We have to understand very well what we want from SIBS: we want it to be collaborative, to reduce costs, to have a good payment platform, etc.? Or is it better not to have SIBS and have every bank take over? Foreign banks love it, there are a lot of people in Spain who want to deal with this situation. Paolo Macedo said shareholders should see an interest in acquiring SIBS or not.

After 21.6%, the other largest contributors to SIBS are Millennium BCP with 21.54% and Santander with 15.56%. Regarding the public bank, Paolo Macedo ensures that “Caixa sees an interest in SIBS operating in the market, but It works properly in the market, With judgment True, it is reinforced and that Do not tolerate undesirable practices”.

Paolo Macedo argued that “SIBS has invested, including now in this new configuration in terms of judgment, where it strengthened the powers of the supervisory board, and strengthened its executive component “and this provides more guarantees on the correctness of behavior. But “If something is not right… This idea about SIBS’ monopoly position has been a recurring topic for some time now, obviously The fund wants everything to be erased It will be available to Support the company on its way to becoming more and more transparent“.