Digital Payments & Fintech · Mexico
Fintech & digital payments rules in Mexico (2026)
Mexico shaded by its digital payments & fintech status
Mexico has a clear, dedicated fintech licensing regime. The 2018 Fintech Law created two authorized institution types — Electronic Payment Funds Institutions (IFPE / e-money) and crowdfunding institutions — both requiring CNBV authorization with the favorable opinion of Banxico and the Finance Ministry (SHCP). Instant-payment infrastructure (SPEI, CoDi, DiMo) is operated by Banxico, while open finance and BNPL remain only partially regulated, with open-banking secondary rules years overdue.
Key points
The Ley Fintech (2018) is the primary law; the CNBV is the licensing authority for Financial Technology Institutions (ITF), acting with the favorable opinion of Banxico and SHCP. Mexico was among the first countries with a bespoke fintech statute.
Electronic Payment Funds Institutions (Instituciones de Fondos de Pago Electrónico) are the e-money/payments license: they may issue, redeem and transfer electronic funds and run digital wallets, subject to CNBV authorization, capital requirements and AML/CFT obligations. They cannot pay interest on balances.
Banxico operates SPEI, a 24/7 real-time interbank transfer system (settlement in seconds). CoDi (QR/NFC, launched 2019) and DiMo (phone-number transfers, launched 2023) run on top of SPEI to drive low-cost account-to-account payments, though CoDi adoption remains modest.
Article 76 of the Fintech Law mandates broad open data sharing across all supervised financial entities (wider than EU PSD2). Only the 'open data' tier (e.g., ATM/branch data, rules published June 2020) is implemented; secondary API standards for transactional data remain unissued years past the statutory deadline, prompting an amparo lawsuit against CNBV/Banxico/SHCP in early 2026.
Buy-now-pay-later is growing rapidly but lacks a dedicated regime; providers operate without a specific BNPL license, and the regulatory posture has been 'observe and educate.' Tighter rules (credit-bureau reporting, fee transparency, limits) are anticipated but not yet in force.
The law also licenses crowdfunding (collective financing) institutions and provides a regulatory sandbox ('novel models'). Authorized ITFs are supervised by the CNBV; conduct/consumer issues fall to CONDUSEF.
Timeline - major decisions & events
Banco de México and the CNBV released an ante-project of 'General Provisions applicable to payment-means networks' (Redes de Medios de Disposición) for public consultation, proposing interchange-fee caps of 0.3% on debit and 0.6% on credit transactions, mandatory network interoperability, and expanded supervisory and sanction powers. The proposal aims to lower merchant costs and reduce concentration in card-acceptance infrastructure.
COFEMERSIMIR — Comisión Federal de Mejora Regulatoria ↗Banco de México introduced DiMo, enabling individuals and businesses to initiate instant SPEI transfers using only the recipient's mobile phone number rather than a 18-digit CLABE, dramatically reducing friction for underserved users. DiMo reached 12.2 million registered users by end-2024, growing 117% in that year alone.
World Bank — Project FASTT Fast Payments ↗The CNBV issued 'General Provisions relating to standardized application programming interfaces' in the Diario Oficial, requiring all supervised financial entities, IFPEs, IFCs, and money transmitters to expose open data (products, branches, ATMs), aggregate data, and — with user consent — transactional data through standardized APIs. The rules established compliance deadlines running through June 2021 and created the legal backbone for Mexico's open-finance ecosystem.
Diario Oficial de la Federación ↗Banco de México rolled out CoDi to more than 20 financial institutions, enabling merchants and individuals to send and receive instant payments up to MXN 8,000 by scanning QR codes or tapping NFC-enabled devices, all settled through SPEI with zero fees. CoDi became Mexico's first mass-market mobile payment instrument and a template for the later DiMo system.
Banco de México ↗Mexico's central bank, finance ministry, and banking supervisor jointly warned consumers and financial institutions about the volatility, operational fragility, and money-laundering risks of cryptocurrencies, signaling coordinated regulatory intent ahead of the 2018 Fintech Law. The statement foreshadowed the restrictions that would be embedded in Circular 4/2019.
CNBV — Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores ↗Banco de México upgraded SPEI from business-hours settlement to round-the-clock, 365-day operation, making instant interbank transfers available at all times. This upgrade was the technical prerequisite that later enabled CoDi (2019) and DiMo (2023) to function as always-on retail payment rails.
World Bank — SPEI Case Study ↗Banco de México launched SPEI (Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios), a real-time gross-settlement system that became the foundational infrastructure for all digital payments in Mexico, gradually replacing the earlier SPEUA system by August 2005. By 2024, SPEI processed 5.34 billion transactions totaling 219 trillion pesos — equivalent to 6.5× Mexico's GDP — making it one of the most-used RTGS systems globally.
Banco de México ↗Mexico - other topics
Last verified 5/23/2026 · Orientation, not legal advice - verify against the primary sources linked above. Explore the full world map →