Fintech & digital payments rules in Uruguay (2026)

The BCU's Superintendencia de Servicios Financieros (SSF) licenses and supervises all payment-system participants. Distinct license categories exist for electronic money issuers (IEDE), payment service providers and collectors (PSPC), and acquirers of payment instruments, all governed by the RNSP. The BCU maintains a public registry of licensed institutions by category.

Electronic money issuers require prior BCU authorization and are regulated under RNSP Book VII. IEDEs may issue general, special, or mixed e-money instruments and may perform payment-instrument acquisition, but are prohibited from taking deposits or granting credit; a 2-business-day provisional credit facility introduced in recent modifications is explicitly excluded from the credit-granting prohibition.

The 2014 Financial Inclusion Law mandated digital salary payments, capped certain cash transactions, and required BCU authorization for all e-money issuers. The 2021 Ley de Urgente Consideración (LUC) softened some mandates (electronic salary payment became optional and cash thresholds were raised) but left the licensing structure intact. The 2025–2029 Budget Law introduced additional adjustments including reforms to the regulatory supervisory fee applicable to e-money issuers.

The BCU launched a real-time interbank transfer service in May 2021, operating 24/7/365 and accessible across banks and e-money institutions regardless of the institution used. Consolidation and expansion of instant payments is a central pillar of the BCU Payment System Roadmap 2026-2030, published in March 2026, which targets universal real-time crediting for all person-to-person and business transfers.

Open banking is not yet legislated or regulated but is a flagship objective of the BCU Payment System Roadmap 2026-2030, under which customers would own their financial data and could share it securely with licensed third parties. No implementing regulation, API standards, or mandatory timelines had been published as of mid-2026.

The BCU adopted Resolution 145/2026 approving a draft sandbox law for financial innovation covering payments, tokenisation, AI-based financial services, and crypto, and forwarded it to the Executive Branch for parliamentary submission; temporary authorizations of up to 24 months are envisaged. Separately, Law 20,345 (September 2024) granted the BCU authority to regulate virtual asset service providers (VASPs); a draft prudential regulation was published for public consultation in August 2025. No specific BNPL rules exist; BNPL providers must hold a credit administrator or credit provider license under the RNSP.