Mexican government rolls out initial open banking regulations

Contxto – Last week Mexico’s National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) published the first set of regulations regarding open banking in the country.

The takeaway: These regulations aren’t exactly “groundbreaking” as they only address the sharing of unclassified information between financial institutions and fintechs. 

I say “financial institutions” because although the oft-used term is “open banking,” Mexico’s fintech law makes it so all financial institutions (not just banks) must enable APIs to connect their databases and share information with other parties.

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It should also be pointed out that these regulations should’ve been released more than a year ago. But hey… it’s still progress as it constitutes a significant step in Mexico’s open banking regulatory rollout.

Updates on open banking Mexico

Certainly this set of new regulations doesn’t address the “meat” of what fintechs are hungry for (users’ statistical and transactional data).

Instead it covers information that’s practically available to the general public such as financial products as well as the locations of ATMs and bank branches. Likewise these regulations tackle the security measures parties must implement and what to do in case of a data breach.

These regulations don’t entail strict regulatory measures for parties that want to share or request this type of information. But given its non-confidential nature, it’s only natural there be less requirements.

• Related article: Chile to speed-draft its fintech law by mid-2020

In other news: Let’s not forget that there are over 80 fintechs waiting to receive the CNBV’s good blessings in complying with Mexico’s Fintech Law. However the Covid-19 pandemic has practically put this approval process on hiatus.

Bureaucrats in Mexico aren’t known for their speed and their level of efficiency has only been worsened by the pandemic. As a result, it could be a long wait for these fintechs and for further open banking regulations on statistical and transactional data to be published and made effective.

Mexico’s Fintech Law may have put its ecosystem on the map. But government sluggishness is dampering its momentum.

Related articles: Tech and startups from Mexico!

-ML