Noticias FinTech México
Felix Pago Raises US$200 mn to Boost Digital Remittances – and Venture into Credit
Félix Pago raised US$200 mn, split between US$87 in a Series C co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst, which brought the Miami-based company to unicorn status, with a US$1.4 bn valuation, and US$113 million is a credit line from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. The remittances company, which said it has processed more than US$8 bn through its WhatsApp-based platform, plans to continue expanding (it has served 6+ million users in 11 LatAm countries, with revenues up 2.5x over the past 12 months blah blah) and bolt on lending, savings, and an AI-driven financial assistant. Venezuelan CEO Manuel Godoy framed it as building “a Goldman Sachs-style experience” for users who’ve historically banked in cash and prefer talking to a person (or a chatbot that actually feels like one) over a banking app.
The plans underscore two key mantras of financial services: firstly, with payments companies engaging in what is essentially a permanent race to the bottom, scale is essential. And secondly, for those who can’t reach Visa- or Mastercard-like scales, you’ll probably need to put your capital at risk to make real money (“you need to provision money to make money”, to paraphrase the cliché). Félix hasn’t said how it plans to underwrite consumer-credit risk or which licenses the expansion requires, nor what know-how it has in issuing credit to often informal and mobile US-based Hispanics. Furthermore, since the whole model runs inside a messaging platform it doesn’t own, any Meta policy shift on WhatsApp Business API terms could pose a structural risk (Meta recently raised messaging rates for business customers).
Félix’s digital design, which uses stablecoins to go around the traditional SWIFT system, avoids the 1% federal excise tax on cash-funded remittances imposed by 2025’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that squeezes more cash-focused incumbents like Western Union (although WU itself has become far more digital recently). That rule might change, but it is difficult to see a scenario where the transition to lower margin digital doesn’t continue to gain momentum, as underscored by Western Union’s shares’ performance, which have lost ~75% of their value since their February 2020 high. With competition heating up in digital transfers (WU, Revolut, Wise, ARQ, Remitly, MoneyGram, Ria..), stablecoins becoming broadly deployed and thus not conferring any special advantage, and margins thus falling, the key will be building scale ahead of others.
Value Add VC, 9/3/26, Trace Cohen: Félix Pago Valuation: $1.4B After $200M Series C for Remittances | Other Sources: Bloomberg.
Mexico’s proposed anti-spam rules, WhatsApp price hikes and line cuts worry lenders and debt collectors
At a time when consumer credit default rates are already rising, banks, fintechs and debt-collection companies worry Mexico’s proposed anti-spam rules could make it harder or more expensive to contact borrowers. Lenders use calls and SMS throughout the credit cycle for authentication, payment reminders, early-stage collections and restructuring offers. At the same time, the rolling suspension of mobile lines not properly linked to the ID of their holders, under way since mid-August and running to the end of December, has already begun to reduce the number of customers that can be reached, complicating collection efforts.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT), which replaced the IFT as sector regulator in October 2025, is preparing a consultation, expected in the second half of September, on new rules intended to reduce spam, phishing, identity theft and telephone fraud. The admirable policy objective is to cut fraud and extortion: data cited by the CRT put the number of people who suffered fraud through internet, calls or SMS in 2024 at 6 million, with losses of MXN52.5 billion, and a further 5.2 million victims of extortion.
The proposals include automated blocking of fraudulent calls and SMS, mechanisms allowing consumers to reject advertising, and dedicated numbering ranges for different types of communications, with reports suggesting ranges beginning 60 for advertising and 30 for transactional traffic, alongside an “ALTO” opt-out reply and a strengthened REPEP registry. Operators would also have to disclose which companies contract bulk SMS campaigns.
While supporting the objectives of the anti-spam rules, some bank and fintechs worry that rules based heavily on traffic patterns or high volumes could block legitimate communications alongside abusive ones. That matters most in unsecured consumer lending, where the ability to reach a borrower is an important part of collections; if contactability falls, lenders could face higher collection costs and weaker recoveries. Over time, they argue, that could feed into higher credit pricing or less underwriting, particularly for riskier borrowers.
The collections industry has already attached (speculative) numbers to the line suspensions. APCOB, the association of collection and legal-services professionals, estimates that between MXN8.5 billion and MXN28.6 billion of debt could go unrecovered as a result, set against a commercial-bank consumer credit book of roughly MXN1.42 trillion. Alan Ramírez, its president, argues that eight of every ten pesos recovered by fintechs and digital banks come through calls, messages and WhatsApp.
The Phone ID linking requirement mostly affects prepaid lines, which account for around 84% of the Mexican mobile market and are heavily over-represented among the lower-income, borrowers that consumer finance companies and collection agencies focus on. Line suspensions are staggered by the final digit of the number, from 15 August to 31 December, and are reversible once a line is registered. But a delinquent borrower has little incentive to re-register promptly, and one who does not may simply drop out of the file. As of early July, only about 65 million of Mexico’s roughly 144.5 million lines had been linked, although a large share of the remainder is likely to be inactive.
Collectors are also operating inside an existing set of constraints. Agencies contracted by financial institutions must be registered with Condusef through REDECO, and Condusef’s rules already set limits on how, when and how often a debtor may be contacted. Whatever the CRT adds, traffic-pattern blocking, numbering restrictions, disclosure of who contracts bulk campaigns, lands on a channel that is already a closely supervised part of the recovery process. The practical question for the sector during the consultation is whether transactional and collections traffic can be routed through the new legitimate numbering ranges without being caught by volume-based filters, and at what cost.
There is also a potential cost issue around SMS. Today, large corporate users often send messages through aggregators and CPaaS providers, which purchase traffic at wholesale rates from telecom operators and resell it to clients. If the final rules require more direct arrangements with mobile networks or specific numbering structures, some industry participants worry that those aggregation benefits could be reduced. That could, in turn, increase the negotiating power of the largest mobile networks, above all Telcel, which holds more than half the market. This is not yet an established consequence of the CRT proposal, but it is one of the commercial issues banks and fintechs are likely to examine during the consultation.
WhatsApp is the obvious alternative channel, but it too is becoming more expensive perhaps because Meta sees that the new potential rules work to its favor. From 1 October 2026, Meta is raising the price of marketing messages in Mexico by around 30%, from about US$0.0305 to US$0.0397 per delivered message. Separately, service messages — free-form replies inside the 24-hour customer service window, which are currently free — become chargeable at about US$0.0085, after an allowance of 1,000 per business phone number per month, and at a flat rate with no volume discount. At scale, the impact can be meaningful. Ten million messages would cost roughly US$397,000, compared with about US$305,000 previously. Twenty million service messages at the new rate would cost around US$170,000 before additional provider or integration fees. For a collections operation running conversational recovery at volume, the absence of a volume discount on service messages is the more negative feature: the cost scales linearly with the size of the delinquent book.
Banks, fintechs and collection agencies therefore want the final anti-spam framework to distinguish as clearly as possible between fraudulent communications and legitimate high-volume customer contact. Otherwise, they worry that a well-intentioned effort to reduce spam and fraud could also have the unintended effect of making debt collection, and potentially early debt restructuring, more difficult and more expensive. And they obviously would rather not pay more money to Telcel and/or Meta. They argue that would mean less credit and more expensive credit in the economy.
Take aways from Mastercard’s 10th annual Mexico Summit as Concanaco calls for MDR cuts
Held in Mexico City last week under the theme “Mexico as an engine of growth,” Mexico was heralded by Jon Huntsman, Mastercard’s Vice Chairman and President of Strategic Growth, as one of Mastercard’s four most important global growth markets, driven by its scale, dynamism and unfinished shift from cash to digital payments. The company announced initiatives it says could reach more than 1.5 million people and businesses by the end of the decade.
Microenterprises make up more than 90% of Mexico’s economic base, Huntsman noted, and many still struggle to adopt technology and move from informality to formality. The opportunity is large precisely because Mexico remains so heavily cash-dependent. Recent coverage puts the figure at roughly eight out of every ten transactions; the latest financial-inclusion survey shows cash as the usual method for 85.2% of purchases below MXN 500 and 73.5% of larger ones. Separate data cited around the summit indicate that about 65% of merchants still accept only cash and that 73% of micro and small businesses do not yet take digital payments.
This persists even as banking and fintech access expand rapidly. Some 76.5% of adults now hold at least one formal financial product (up from 67.8% in 2021), and seven out of ten account holders manage money via mobile phone. The bottleneck has shifted from consumer access to merchant acceptance. Mastercard is targeting that gap at the small-business level. A new phase of Mastercard Avance MiPyME, run with Fundación Capital, aims to help one million micro and small businesses adopt digital payments and strengthen digital capabilities. Roughly 500,000 businesses have already participated over the past three years.
Silvana Hernández, President of Mastercard’s North Latin America division, emphasized that Mexico already has much of the necessary infrastructure; the remaining challenge is making digital acceptance everyday practice for ordinary purchases. Digitalization, however, brings new risks. Mastercard is therefore supporting PyMEs Ciberseguras, an AMITI-led initiative that targets another 500,000 Mexican businesses with cybersecurity training and tools. The company is contributing 500,000 licenses for its My Cyber Risk platform. Only around 17% of Mexican SMEs currently take preventive action against cyberattacks, and Huntsman noted that more than half of small businesses have already been targets of cyber incidents, phishing or other attacks.
Cost remains a barrier. Last week Concanaco Servytur warned that high merchant discount rates (MDRs), the total cost absorbed by businesses for accepting cards, encompassing in order of magnitude interchange paid toward issuers, acquiring and processing costs, and card-network fees — are slowing digitalization among micro, small and family businesses. Concanaco initially cited average retail MDRs of 2.94% for credit cards and 2.77% for debit. However, following a clarification from the Mexican Bankers Association, it subsequently acknowledged that the weighted national averages as of September 2025 were lower, at 2.15% for credit and 1.72% for debit. The higher figures highlighted in its campaign — 4.50% in general retail and as much as 5.39% in restaurants — seem to be the maximum observed rates rather than market averages, and should be seen in the context of media messaging rather than typical commissions paid. (Concanaco did not talk about tax, which is likely is an even bigger reason than commissions why many merchants avoid accepting cards. Nor did it address the cost of handling cash.)
At those levels, a MXN10,000 credit-card transaction would cost a merchant roughly MXN215 using the weighted national average, but potentially as much as MXN539 at the high end. Concanaco’s international comparison puts Brazil at around 2.16% for credit cards, while Spain’s retail MDR is cited at just 0.31%-0.34%. South Korea, meanwhile, operates a tiered system with preferential rates for smaller merchants starting at around 0.40%.
Concanaco argues that smaller businesses with thin margins can face disproportionately high acceptance costs and has called for preferential MDRs based on merchant size, business type and transaction value. It proposed a national technical dialogue involving Banco de México, the Finance Ministry, CNBV, the Mexican Bankers Association, acquirers, aggregators, payment networks and organized commerce.
A related Concanaco-FINABIEN survey of 894 businesses across more than 30 states illustrates the gap. Some 94% of respondents have smartphones and 88% have internet access at their businesses, yet 44.6% still do not accept cards. Three in ten said they had lost at least one sale in the previous month because they could not accept the customer’s preferred payment method, while 89% said they would adopt an easy, low-cost digital payment tool. The problem, Concanaco argues, is increasingly less access to technology than the economics of accepting payments. (Hard discounter Tiendas 3B has responded to high MDRs by rolling out a pilot in certain stores where only cash and CoDi (Banxico’s commission-free payments rail) is accepted, and no cards.
The card networks – Mastercard and VISA – would naturally support measures that stimulate card use, as long as their own network fee was not part of any MDR reduction. (NMPF — Not My Payment Fees). They have been unhappy with the success of Pix in Brazil that has disintermediated the networks so will be watching carefully if there any signs CoDi finally takes off. (So far they can relax on that front.)
The Concanaco warnings come as Banxico has submitted revised proposals to cut the issuer interchange rates over the next four years by about 30%, addressed in last week’s FinTech Chatter. But the Banxico proposal does not specifically address overall MDR rates, just issuer interchange. Meanwhile the ABM has been criticized in the press for re-classifying certain merchants (ie, schools) to higher MDR rates, although the ABM has said this was decided by acquirers not the ABM, and in any case reflects misclassifications or abuses in the past.
Mastercard targets 1.5mn people & businesses
Concanaco calls for cut in MDRs
Lectura adicional...
- Banco Plata expects to reach profitability “pretty soon”.
- Tapi’s payment network reaches 81% of Mexican municipalities.
Noticias de LatAm FinTech
Mercado Pago Ready to Press Ahead in Brazil
Mercado Pago, MercadoLibre’s fintech arm, says it plans to keep expanding its credit card business in Brazil with VP Ignacio Estivariz asserting that the company’s AI-driven underwriting models and loan portfolio remain healthy despite a more challenging economic and credit backdrop. The company issued 2.6 million credit cards in the second quarter, up from 1.6 million a year earlier, while delinquency rates stood at 4.6% (15-90 days) and 7.0% across its total loan book, with loans over 90 days past due rising to 18.7%; MercadoLibre also reported an 85% year-on-year jump in provisions (‘’you need to provision money to make money’’) for doubtful accounts, which weighed on net profit despite record revenue. Brazilian regulators are weighing lending curbs on household debt, particularly in credit cards and unsecured consumer loans, and central bank supervision director Ailton de Aquino said a “relevant measure” targeting higher-cost credit segments would be announced soon.
Reuters, 9/1/26, Marcela Ayres: Mercado Pago unfazed by Brazil consumer debt worries as it expands credit card business.
Lectura adicional...
- Stablecoins Raise Latam Paradox.
- Brazil Central Bank Liquidates Firms Tied to Banco Master.
- Mercado Bitcoin and Bitso join forces to compete in Brazil.
- Ant International Secures Payment Institution Licence from the Central Bank of Brazil.
- dLocal launches dMoRe, Merchant of Record (MoR) solution for global companies expanding in emerging markets.
- Colombian fintech Plenti raises $3M seed round led by Tether to expand across Latin America.
- Yuno partners with Revolut
Noticias mundiales sobre tecnología financiera
In Key Milestone, Revolut Gets Green Light on U.S. Bank Charter
UK-based fintech Revolut has received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter, a key milestone toward launching a full-fledged American bank by 2027. The neobank, which has 80 million customers globally, now awaits sign-off from the FDIC and Federal Reserve, according to U.S. CEO Cetin Duransoy. The planned bank will be headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, backed by roughly $95 million in capital from Revolut, and will offer checking accounts, installment loans, credit cards, foreign exchange services, and reportedly a stablecoin. Revolut expects to launch with about 160 employees in the first half of 2027, leveraging its European and Latin American operations to offer multicurrency services.
Revolut’s conditional approval stands in sharp contrast to recent OCC treatment of other European fintechs. The OCC formally denied Bunq’s US national bank charter application in an August 4, 2026 letter, citing unclear capital sourcing, inexperienced credit card leadership, and a proposed CEO planning to work part-time from outside the US. Weeks earlier, the OCC denied Wise’s proposed national trust bank because of compliance and management shortcomings, particularly around anti-money laundering controls, tied to a multistate consent order over Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering failures from 2025. Observers have framed the two denials as showing the tough regulatory limits foreign fintechs face when trying to access US banking rails directly.
Reuters, 9/2/26, Tatiana Bautzer: Revolut wins conditional US banking license.
Lectura adicional...
- Goldman Sachs, BofA and others plan to issue dollar stablecoin together in 2027.
- Wall Street banks push Big Law to cut fees because of AI.
- How Billions in Iranian Money Passes Through U.S. Banks.
- China Injects Billions of Capital into Mega Banks, Insurers.
- Singapore commits $170 million over three years to drive fintech innovation.
- UBS demands new junior bankers show AI proficiency.
Descargar PDF: Mexico Fintech Chatter – 08.31.26