🇲🇽 Payments in Mexico

The market in numbers, and what the averages hide

Mexican retail payments rest on three instruments that public statistics track separately: cards, interbank transfers, and cash. In 2025, Banco de México counted 11.26 billion card payments, up 14% year over year, 72% of them on debit. SPEI, the central bank’s real-time interbank transfer system, processed more than seven billion transfers the same year, up 36.8% (Banco de México, 2026). The central bank expects SPEI to overtake cards in transaction count before the end of 2026, which would take a sharp acceleration: at 2025 growth rates, SPEI would stay below 10 billion transactions in 2026, against nearly 12.8 billion for cards. Cards and transfers are growing side by side, and neither is growing at the other’s expense. They cover different purchases and different amounts. The volume they gain comes out of cash.

The Encuesta Nacional de Inclusión Financiera (ENIF), the national financial inclusion survey, is how INEGI and the CNBV measure the ownership and use of financial products in Mexico. The 2024 edition covers the population aged 18 to 70. It finds that 76.5% hold at least one formal financial product and 63.0% hold a savings account. Formal credit reaches only 37.3% of this population, and insurance 22.9%. Inclusion is therefore advancing through accounts more than through credit. The share of account holders who manage their money in a mobile app rose from 54.3% to 69.1% between 2021 and 2024. Over the same period, ATM use for these operations fell 16.8 points. The digital channel is spreading faster among people who already bank than accounts are spreading across the population as a whole.

Online retail is where these three instruments meet, and it changed scale between 2024 and 2025. AMVO puts online retail sales at MXN 941 billion in 2025, up 19.2%. They account for 17.7% of the country’s retail sales. The number of online shoppers rose from 67.2 million in 2024 to 77.2 million in 2025: ten million new shoppers in a single year. In a country where formal credit reaches only 37.3% of adults, that growth comes through debit cards, transfers, and cash at the counter. A checkout that does not offer all three routes gets traffic it cannot convert into payments.

Prosa and E-Global: the unavoidable path for every card transaction

Every interbank card transaction in Mexico passes through one of two card payment clearing houses, Prosa or E-Global. Prosa, founded in 1968, is owned by Banorte, Santander México, Scotiabank México, HSBC México, Invex, and Banjército. E-Global belongs to BBVA México and Citibanamex. Each switches authorizations and then clears positions between issuers and acquirers, under the rules Banco de México applies to card payment clearing houses. An acquirer entering the market connects to one of the two, often both. There is no other route to Mexican issuers. The two clearing houses are not interchangeable, and neither serves as a backup for the other.

Cofece, Mexico’s competition authority at the time, examined the card payment processing market and published its findings. On September 14, 2023, it declared that the market lacked effective competition. It identified three barriers to entry and described the market as highly concentrated around the two clearing houses. In December 2023, it issued recommendations to Banco de México and the CNBV. It also required both Prosa and E-Global to adopt a competition compliance program with a designated officer. Its practical concern was the acceptance cost borne by small businesses, which it tied directly to this market structure.

For an issuer, the consequences concern routing and dependency. The choice of clearing house determines who sees its authorizations, which clearing calendar applies, and which provider must certify every product change. For an acquirer, the same dependency adds a continuity risk: a switch outage cuts off access to part of the issuer base, and there is no commercial workaround. Companies that operate in several Latin American markets cannot route an authorization to a competing network here. Negotiation therefore centers on the acquiring contract, the only variable genuinely open, while the market structure dictates the technical path.

• Ask which clearing house the acquirer connects to, and whether it covers both. Partial coverage shows up as uneven authorization rates depending on the cardholder’s issuer.
• Don’t confuse the clearing house with the network. Prosa switches and clears, and Carnet is an acceptance brand it operates; Visa and Mastercard remain the brand owners for most cards in circulation.
• Check each clearing house’s settlement calendar before modeling cash flow, because it cannot be inferred from the scheme contract.
• Treat a switch outage as a business continuity risk, and cover it with an alternative payment method at checkout rather than a second acquirer.

The price of acceptance, published by the central bank

The price of card acceptance in Mexico breaks down into two fees that the law and the central bank keep separate. The tasa de descuento (merchant discount rate) is the fee the acquirer charges the merchant, negotiated privately. The cuota de intercambio (interchange fee) is the acquirer’s payment to the issuer on each interbank transaction, and it sets a floor for the first. Banco de México publishes both schedules. Mexican merchants therefore know how much of their fee goes to the issuer, something their counterparts in many countries don’t. The legal basis is Article 4 Bis 3 of the Ley para la Transparencia y Ordenamiento de los Servicios Financieros. It is implemented through the Disposiciones de carácter general aplicables a las Redes de Medios de Disposición, which the CNBV and Banco de México jointly published in the Diario Oficial, Mexico’s official gazette, on March 11, 2014.

The current schedule stems from a 2005 reform that changed the variable used to set rates. Before 2005, cuotas were set by the merchant’s sales volume, which penalized small businesses and discouraged acceptance. At Banco de México’s request, the Asociación de Bancos de México (ABM), the banking association, switched in 2005 to a schedule by giro comercial, meaning by business sector. Debit rates were set below credit rates. In the same 2005 overhaul, debit got an absolute cap of 13.50 pesos per transaction, which has not changed since. In June 2013, a new round of negotiation lowered credit rates and created 0% giros for sectors the authorities wanted to encourage.

The broader reform is still at the draft stage. The text the CNBV and Banco de México put out for consultation on October 27, 2025, proposes capping the cuota de intercambio at 0.6% for credit and 0.3% for debit. The published maximums currently stand at 1.91% and 1.15%. The ABM accepted the principle in November 2025 but asked for a gradual glide path. In June 2026, the governor of Banco de México said a revised version reflecting the comments was still pending. The only text in force so far is sector-specific. Disposición 10ª Bis was published in the evening edition of the Diario Oficial on April 27, 2026. It gives gas stations a lighter registration regime, exempt from the 30-day notice and from prior justification. A registration is valid for six months from the implementation date notified to Banco de México, and the text is automatically repealed on October 31, 2026.

Visa and Mastercard account for most cards in circulation, but the market still has a domestic acceptance brand. Carnet is operated by Prosa and works only in Mexico. The brand says more than 82 financial and nonfinancial institutions are connected to its network, including Banorte, BanBajío, Inbursa, Invex, Banco Azteca, Afirme, Banregio, and HSBC. Its appeal lies in its acceptance cost rather than its name recognition: Mexican cardholders rarely notice the brand. American Express rounds out the picture with a three-party model and its own terms. The CNA’s reasoning about Carnet’s possible disappearance shows the role the authorities assign to the brand. They see it as a lever on pricing, and losing it would take a low-cost option off the market.

Meses sin intereses: free credit paid for by the merchant

Meses sin intereses (“months without interest”) are installment plans carried on the card rail. The issuer advances the amount to the cardholder and spreads it over three, six, nine, or 12 interest-free monthly payments, sometimes more. The lender is therefore the card issuer, and the credit risk stays with it. The merchant gets paid, then has a deferral fee deducted on top of its usual tasa de descuento. Installments sold by a third-party lender work differently: the lender buys the receivable and charges the merchant an origination fee. Because the lender here is the issuer, the promotion stays on the card rail end to end. It is managed through the merchant’s acquirer, not under a separate financing contract.

Balances held in meses sin intereses are spread very unevenly across cardholders, and the overall average hides this. As of June 2025, Banco de México counted 26.52 million cards in its comparable portfolio, 12.71 million of which had used a meses sin intereses promotion. Across the portfolio, 27.2% of balances were interest-free installments, 23.6% were on a promotional rate, and 49.2% carried no promotion at all. Customers who actually pay interest, known as no totaleros, hold only 12.7% of their balances in these plans. The program is used mostly by customers who never borrow. For merchants, it works as a conversion tool at checkout. Its effect on financial inclusion remains small.

El Buen Fin is Mexico’s annual retail shopping event, and data from it show where installments rank among other promotions. For Buen Fin 2025, Concanaco Servytur, the national chamber of commerce, reported in its preliminary results that 31% of merchants offered meses sin intereses and 56% offered straight discounts. Meanwhile, 79% of purchases were paid by card. Straight discounts are thus more widespread than installments, even at the time of year when installments get the most promotion. The cost of the program should be weighed against the incremental revenue it generates. Twelve monthly installments carrying 12 points of deferral fees eat into margin that the sale has to recover. That recovery comes either from a correspondingly higher average order value or from a sale that would not otherwise have happened.

Accepting payments in Mexico, and under which license

Mexican law names each role in the acceptance chain, and those names carry contractual consequences. The Disposiciones de carácter general aplicables a las Redes de Medios de Disposición distinguish the adquirente (acquirer), the agregador (aggregator), the cámara de compensación (clearing house), the titular de marca (brand owner), and the processor. An aggregator, under a service agreement with an acquirer, offers card acceptance to payees and supplies them with a terminal where needed. It registers its fees with Banco de México just as an acquirer does, and the CNBV supervises all network participants. Whether the merchant contracts with an acquirer or an aggregator determines who holds the merchant account, who carries the risk, and who can change the fee schedule.

The electronic payment funds institution (IFPE) license was created by the Ley para Regular las Instituciones de Tecnología Financiera, known as the Fintech Law, published in the Diario Oficial on March 9, 2018. The CNBV grants it after an opinion from the interagency committee made up of the CNBV, Banco de México, and the Ministry of Finance. Minimum capital is expressed in UDIs, an inflation-indexed unit: a base of 500,000 UDIs, rising to 700,000 depending on the planned activities. Customer funds must be held in accounts at authorized financial institutions, separate from the firm’s own assets, and the firm pays no interest on balances. The number of licensed IFPEs changes with each published authorization, and only the CNBV’s Padrón de Entidades Supervisadas is authoritative.

Account-to-account payments run over SPEI and are reconciled using the CLABE, the standardized 18-digit bank account number, mandatory since June 1, 2004. The usual setup assigns a virtual CLABE to each order or customer, so matching becomes automatic and no longer depends on the reference the payer types in. Banco de México tightened its user experience requirements with Circular 9/2026, published in the Diario Oficial on June 17, 2026. It adds user experience guidelines for mobile transfers to Circular 14/2017. SPEI direct and indirect participants must standardize their transfer, DiMo, CoDi, and QR flows by December 14, 2026. The obligation falls on the participant, not on the integrator that connects to it. Payment flows built on a participant’s app will therefore change on that participant’s timeline.

Cash payment at the counter remains a major channel, and two networks split it with different models. OXXO Pay, run by FEMSA, relies on the group’s network of convenience stores. Paynet, operated by Openpay within the BBVA group, claims more than 32,000 payment locations across Walmart, Bodega Aurrera, 7-Eleven, Farmacias Benavides, and Farmacias del Ahorro. The choice between the two comes down to three parameters. The first is the coverage of payment locations. The second is the fee structure, flat per reference or a percentage of the amount, along with how long a reference stays valid. The third is the payout schedule to the merchant, which does not follow the card payout schedule.

• Demand a breakdown of the tasa de descuento and the giro applied. Cuotas de intercambio are public; a blended rate hides precisely the negotiable part.
• Model two payment clocks. SPEI confirms in seconds, the cash counter in hours or days, and an order system that knows only one releases orders too early or loses carts.
• Reconcile on a unique reference, never on amount and date, for every non-card rail.
• Identify who holds the funds at each step. Bank, IFPE, or aggregator: the answer determines how well end customers are protected and how exposed the collecting party is.
• Build the CLABE into the data model with its check-digit rule, rather than into a free-text field where it will end up truncated.

Foreign platforms become Mexican tax collectors

Since June 1, 2020, Mexico has taxed digital services provided by nonresidents with no establishment in the country. Chapter III BIS of the Ley del Impuesto al Valor Agregado, the VAT law, sets out the regime. A general section covers Articles 18-B to 18-I, and a second covers intermediation platforms, in Articles 18-J to 18-M. The foreign provider does not open a branch and does not become a tax resident. It registers in the taxpayer registry, charges IVA to its Mexican customers, and remits it to the Treasury. The regime thus treats an entity with no physical presence as a tax collector, and backs that role with penalties that have no equivalent in Europe.

• Register in the RFC, the federal taxpayer registry, within 30 days of first providing digital services in Mexico, using the SAT’s 1/PLT procedure.
• Appoint a legal representative and a tax address in Mexico by notarial deed, without creating a permanent establishment.
• Obtain an e.firma, the electronic signature required to issue the CFDIs (electronic invoices) customers may request.
• Charge IVA at 16% and display prices including tax, with the tax stated explicitly.
• File and pay monthly, by the 17th of the following month, and keep the required records.

Intermediation platforms carry an extra obligation: withholding the tax their sellers owe. Article 18-J of the LIVA requires them to withhold 50% of the IVA charged on transactions made through the platform and remit it to the SAT. It applied only to individuals until January 1, 2026, when the Ley de Ingresos de la Federación, the annual federal revenue law, extended the withholding to legal entities. It rises to 100% when the seller has not provided its RFC. It also reaches 100% when the platform collects the price and IVA on the seller’s behalf and deposits those funds in bank accounts abroad. That last case began as an administrative rule, Rule 12.2.10 of the Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal for 2024, applicable from January 1, 2025. The reform of Article 18-J wrote it into the statute itself as of January 1, 2026. Where the collection account is held therefore becomes a tax parameter, just like the seller’s status and whether it has provided its RFC.

Articles 113-A to 113-D of the LISR, the income tax law, govern the income tax that the platform withholds from its sellers’ proceeds. The regime changed on January 1, 2026, in both rate and scope. The rate for sales of goods and services went from 1% to 2.5% of gross proceeds. It is calculated with no deductions and regardless of the seller’s profit. Legal entities come into scope for the first time; until then the rule covered only individuals. Without an RFC, the withholding rises to 20%. These rates are set in statute and change with the annual tax package, so they can be amended on January 1 of any year.

Finally, the regime ties into Mexico’s electronic invoicing system, which long predates it. A CFDI is certified by the SAT or by a Proveedor Autorizado de Certificación. Version 4.0 has been the only valid version since its coexistence with 3.3 ended on March 31, 2023. A foreign platform within scope therefore issues withholding CFDIs in addition to the invoices its customers may request. RFC registration is a prerequisite for the e.firma, without which no CFDI can be issued, and certification then goes through the SAT or a PAC. The 17th-of-the-month deadline applies from the first filing period. None of this can be set up in the month a market opens.