In chapter 16 of Mercado Fintech, the section co-produced by MercadoPago and “Información Privilegiada”, we spoke with Ángel Sierra, executive director of FinteChile, and Roberto Opazo, co-founder and CEO of Khipu, about BancoEstado’s attack against some technological finance companies – Among them, Khipu, which was unleashed from the new cybersecurity standards implemented by the state bank.
“When a new actor enters an industry there are frictions, but it is natural to live a process of stabilization, normalization and rapprochement so that this continues to flow. And here public policy is going to be decisive for companies,” Sierra said. He added that “we have a Fintech Law project that has lagged behind (…) and that Fintech Law comes to a great extent to solve, to settle the situations that we are experiencing. Today we have closure of current accounts to exchange companies, cryptocurrencies, and the exchange would be regulated, we have Open Finance or Open Banking issues that could solve issues like the ones we are seeing today with BancoEstado and other Fintech companies”.
Meanwhile, Roberto Opazo accused that BancoEstado “put into production an anti-bot technology that ended up blocking Khipu and other Fintech operations”. He added that Khipu was working with a BancoEstado team to implement a security protocol, but was rejected by a person on the bank’s executive committee. According to Opazo, the only point of discussion that prevented an agreement is that the bank tried to pass on to Khipu the costs that the anti-fraud law imposes on the bank and not on third parties.
Looking to the future, Ángel Sierra stated that all actors should be more proactive in generating dialogue and seeking solutions.