Mercado Pago is the first company with a payment transaction initiator (ITP) license to have the service operational. This figure was created in the third phase of open banking and allows you to initiate operations at a third party without leaving the environment of the original institution, simplifying operations.

For example: before, when customers wanted to make a transfer from an account at another bank to their Mercado Pago account, they had to go into the app of that other bank to perform the operation. Now, they will be able to make the request within the Mercado Pago application itself.

The fintech is not the only one to have an ITP license - which is not mandatory for open banking participants - but it is the first to make it operational. Initially it will be available for transactions with four other financial institutions, which Mercado Pago believes are already able to offer a good customer experience. The names of these partners, however, have not been revealed. By the rules of open banking, all institutions are required to accept a transaction initiated by an ITP, but the vast majority are not yet fully ready to do so.

For now, the tool can be accessed by a small part of the customer base, but it is expected to be available to all Mercado Pago users in about two months.

When you initiate a transaction via ITP, you do not need to share any passwords with the initiator from the third-party bank. At the same time, the transaction must be approved in the other bank's app, i.e. there is double validation.

"All participants are regulated by the Central Bank and follow rules of banking secrecy, data protection and cybersecurity. Thus, the user can rest assured that the transaction is completely secure," says Priscila Faro, director of fintech regulation at Mercado Pago.

Tulio Oliveira, vice president of Mercado Pago and responsible for the fintech's Brazilian operation, says that the payment initiator function changes transaction flows and is the first step in other new features that should be launched soon. "This values the customer experience, the usability of the account where he effectively has money. Later on ITP will also work at the checkout points where the customer makes his purchases. That is, if I am on an e-commerce site, instead of having to generate a QR Code or copy and paste the Pix code, I already initiate a payment directly from my bank account," he explains.

For him, ITP is inserted in the concept brought by open banking, which shows that the owner of the data is really the client, and not the financial institution where it is stored. "It's a great market evolution, because the institutions will no longer decide for the user, he will decide for himself. Having access to all the information organized, in one place, focuses the experience better and eliminates potential relationship barriers."

It is one thing for the tool to be available, but another thing for customers to actually use it. For Faro, the Central Bank has invested heavily in information campaigns and other initiatives to really introduce open banking into the Brazilian culture. The financial institutions have also conducted their own marketing campaigns. "Here, we have done several actions, using a very accessible language, showing the facilities, giving safety tips. We have marketing, a blog, and the app itself brings screens with educational information," he says.

Faro also says he does not believe he believes in greater cyber risks with ITP. "The initiator uses an open banking framework that is already ready. It will fall within what already exists, which is tested, homologated, subject to oversight."