Mercado Libre & Pago: Becoming a Bank – What Users Need to Know

After Mercado Pago was “painted yellow”, rumors arose online about the possibility of Mercado Libre combining its two businesses into a single super app. But in the sector they say that The unicorn’s “Plan 2026” goes the other way.

Mercado Libre: the app for everything

According to sources consulted by iProUP, The idea of ​​the firm led by Marcos Galperin is not to create one super app, but two:

• Payment Marketfor strictly financial
• Free marketfor the rest “of the life“

For now, he has already undertaken a silent move of wallet services to your ecommerce app, as Restaurantswhat started as Delivery in MP, your alternative to Rappi and PedidosYa.

According to sources, in the corridors of Saavedra’s firm A term that is advancing for its ecommerce platform already resonates: the app for everything or, in Spanish, the application for everything.

Through alliances with third parties and the revenue sharing (profit sharing), will seek to leverage the subscription business: services with monthly paymentswhich ensure constant operations – and income –. It is a modality that has its own section in the app and in which it is already growing:

• Meli+its benefits program with free shipping on ticket purchases less than the standard, interest-free installments and Disney+ free of charge, which costs $3,490
• Dr. Virtual: its health insurance system, which for $4,990 per month allows access to free medical consultations and prescriptions

But the vertical will continue to expand. According to an industry source, “Gyms and travel assistance will soon be included“. The latter suggests that Mercado Libre is planning to add the tourism category to its marketplace and step on the tail of another unicorn born in Argentina: Despegar, which was recently sold to the international group Prosus.

Gastón Lavorato, CEO of Bagheads Labs, ensures iProUP: “Mercado Libre is not playing ecommerce, it is building digital infrastructure for everyday life“.

“What’s coming is quite predictable: cross-subscription alliances, Spotify, Disney+; also services, benefits and assistance. Add trips at any time“They have the means of payment, credit, insurance and the largest user base on the continent,” he adds.

The North of Mercado Pago are the Asian superappsespecially one, in which he was inspired to bring the QR to the country. “It is the Latin WeChat, a platform that seeks to absorb every transaction we make online: from buying a t-shirt to insuring the car or planning a vacation.”Imagine buying a flight, paying for it with Mercado Crédito, accumulating Meli+ points and having medical assistance included. All without leaving the app“, resume Worked.

Mercado Pago: the money super app

Mercado Pago also advanced to be a financial super app. It is expected that towards the end of the year or beginning of 2026, receive the BCRA’s OK for your banking license application and add more services. Also in that period, Revolut and Cocos may have news about the acquisition of Cetelem and VOII, respectively.

This is the reason why Mercado Pago dedicates itself almost exclusively to financial issuessince the license will force you to play with other rules and limit the possibility of it being merged into an app with Mercado Libre.

“You cannot put an ecommerce in a banking app, which has to comply with BCRA security rules, which are very strict and it should be like this: the marketplace has nothing to do with the agents regulated by the Central Bank,” fintech lawyer Iván Bolé tells iProUP.

How Mercado Pago and Mercado Libre will change

This may be the reason why no bank that has its own store incorporates it into its app.although on a subsite of its home banking, warning that it is operating outside the entity’s regulated environment.

The super wallet will seek to overcome another obstacle: advance in payments with NFC, to pay using the cell phone instead of the card. The unicorn hinted more than once that it expects banks to provide the credentials to enroll them, as they did with the QR. A strategy frozen due to the low penetration of compatible cell phones (40%-50%).

“It is impossible for us to join that,” they reject from a top entity. The sector is behind MODOwhich seeks to enhance its payment function contactless to gain ground on Google Wallet and Apple Pay. And add more transactions outside the QR.

“They are playing hard with VISAwhich remains closely linked to the banks, while Mastercard has more presence in fintech“, he assures iProUP an industry source.

Indeed, The card brand launched an ambitious promotion with public dissemination, of 100% discount for NFC payments in transport (where MP hit QR first), in which the MODO logo appears next to that of Google and Apple.

Visa, MODO and banks jointly advance NFC payments

On the other hand, Mercado Pago today only allows you to pay with contactless with its prepaid and credit cards, recently launched and with progressive deployment. For now, The unicorn’s big bet will be to obtain the license, which will allow it to earn salaries, an old claim of fintech, as it already does with social plans.

Francisco Chaves del Valle, co-director of ITBA’s fintech postgraduate program, tells iProUP that “a salary account offers you a loyal user, not out of conviction but out of habit: every month the salary is credited and from that recurrence a financial relationship can be consolidated.”

“You can offer loans for white goods, mortgages and even for working capital, as you do with Mercado Libre sellers. By knowing data on user purchases and company sales, with lower inflation it will give very competitive rates,” he adds.

Bank status will also allow you to access the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies before wallets, an announcement that was expected after the Legislative Elections to avoid putting the $Libra issue on the agenda in the middle of the campaign. Today, that horizon is less clear, after the BCRA’s “anti-roll” measures.

The unicorn has its function ready to operate crypto (it would start with USDT) and can even replicate its Melidólar to offer refunds on purchases, as in Brazil, in alliance with Ripio.

The financial superapp is expected to also have investment instruments at MP stylewhich this year registered as a settlement and clearing agent with the CNV.

Ignacio E. Carballo, director of the UCA Center for Alternative Finance, assures iProUP that “will be in a position to launch more sophisticated instruments and move forward with common funds in a dynamic way and updatedas Brubank doeswhich allows you to choose your asset composition”.

The next few weeks will be key for the unicorn, which will seek to achieve the dream of every application: accompany the user throughout the day.