Mexico wants to stop paying in cash, and this time it wants a law to make it happen.
On September 8, 2026, President Claudia Sheinbaum sent Congress a bill to create the Ley de Economía Digital para Pagos Digitales y Electrónicos (Digital Economy Law for Digital and Electronic Payments). It is short, just 22 articles, but its ambition is large: make digital payments the default way Mexicans pay, get paid and open financial accounts.
The law does not build new rails. Instead, it ties together tools Mexico already has (SPEI, CoDi, DiMo, digital identity) and gives authorities the legal power to push adoption. In a few sectors, it could even make digital payments the only accepted option.
The problem: great rails, few riders
The government’s diagnosis is blunt: the gap is not infrastructure, it is adoption. Mexico already has SPEI for instant 24/7 transfers, CoDi and DiMo for QR and phone-number payments, simplified remote accounts, and more mobile phones than bank accounts.
Yet cash still rules. According to INEGI’s 2024 financial inclusion survey (ENIF), cash was the usual payment method for 85.2% of purchases of MXN 500 or less, down only from 90.1% in 2021. Transfers and mobile apps rose from 1.6% to 4.4% over the same period.
The gap is also regional. Almost 10% of people in Mexico City used their phone as their main way to pay, against just 6% in the south. The bill’s stated goal is to close the distance between the rails that exist and the people actually using them.
Pillar 1: digital identity as a «trust mechanism»
Remote onboarding only works if you can prove who someone is without a branch visit or paper documents. The law tackles this by naming two government tools as official «mecanismos de confianza» for opening financial products digitally.
- CURP Digital. Financial entities must accept the digital version of Mexico’s population registry ID when customers contract services online. Customers can still choose any other official ID (Arts. 5–6).
- Expediente Digital Ciudadano. This is a government-held digital file of a person’s documents, created under the Ley Nacional para Eliminar Trámites Burocráticos. At the customer’s request, entities must accept it to consult and port documents, and those digital documents carry the same legal weight as physical ones (Arts. 7–9).
The scope of «entities» is wide: banks, SOFOMs, SOFIPOs, cooperatives, credit unions, fintech institutions (ITFs), lending trusts and any company that habitually lends to the public. For fintechs, this is effectively a state-backed KYC shortcut, always subject to the user’s consent and data-protection rules.
Pillar 2: making digital payments accepted everywhere
The law defines «digital and electronic payment methods» broadly: QR codes, NFC devices, debit and credit cards, fund transfers (including direct debit or domiciliación), and any device or interface authorities later recognize.
For most merchants, acceptance stays voluntary: providers of goods and services «may» implement these methods (Art. 11). Governments at the federal, state and municipal level, however, must accept them for public procedures and services (Art. 10). Anyone who enables digital payments must build the infrastructure, tell users which methods are available and handle outages (Art. 12).
The headline power is Article 13. The Ministry of Finance (SHCP) can designate «strategic sectors and relevant activities» where digital payment becomes the only accepted form of payment. The transitional articles set a fast clock:
- The law takes effect the day after publication in the Diario Oficial.
- Within 15 business days, SHCP names the first digital-only sectors, and can add more later.
- Within 15 more business days, each sector’s regulator issues the rules, requirements and a gradual transition timeline away from cash.
Press coverage and government briefings point to gas stations and toll booths as the first targets. The government’s digital agency has said 95% of service stations already have card terminals.
There is a safety valve. If a contingency (an outage, a disaster, force majeure) makes digital payment impossible, cash or cheque must be accepted (Art. 15). But in digital-only sectors, contingencies cannot justify permanent or recurring non-compliance (Art. 16).
Pillar 3: new tools for Banxico and duties for financial entities
Article 19 gives Banco de México a toolkit to push adoption. It may:
- Expand the transaction levels of demand-deposit accounts, so simplified accounts fit more people’s needs.
- Build software that makes electronic transfers easier to use for payments.
- Standardize the user experience across financial services apps.
- Together with the CNBV, require entities that run card point-of-sale terminals to also accept QR-code payments, under Banxico’s technical specs. CNBV supervises compliance.
- Provide infrastructure or other measures to widen access to financial services.
The QR-on-POS rule is the sleeper provision. It would turn every card terminal into an entry point for SPEI-based QR payments like CoDi, putting account-to-account rails directly next to card networks at checkout.
Financial entities, in turn, must promote financial inclusion, advertise products for different population segments, promote the tiered account levels and make digital lending easier (Art. 20). Authorities must also remove regulatory barriers to credit and run connectivity programs (Arts. 17–18).
What it means for fintechs
The law is a framework, not a rulebook. Most of the real detail will come from secondary regulation by SHCP, Banxico, CNBV and sector regulators. Still, the direction is clear:
- Demand shock in mandated sectors. Gas stations, toll roads and any later-designated sector will need acceptance tools fast, which is an opening for acquirers, payment facilitators and QR/SPEI providers.
- Account-to-account goes mainstream. QR acceptance on existing POS terminals could make CoDi-style payments a default checkout option.
- Cheaper onboarding. CURP Digital and the Expediente Digital Ciudadano could cut KYC friction for ITFs, SOFIPOs and SOFOMs, once technical integration rules exist.
- More data, more credit. Every digital payment builds a transaction history that lenders can use to underwrite people and small businesses with no formal records.
The debate and open questions
Supporters, led by Morena and the Finance Committee, frame the law as gradual and argue it brings lower costs, more security and better tax collection. Opposition parties (PAN, PRI and MC) object that SHCP gets broad discretion to pick cash-free sectors without defined criteria. They also question whether connectivity is good enough nationwide and warn that centralizing identity data needs strong safeguards against misuse.
Open questions for the industry include how fast sector regulators will move, what Banxico’s QR technical standards will look like, who bears the cost of new terminals, and how CURP Digital will plug into existing CNBV identity-verification rules.
Where it stands
The Chamber of Deputies approved the bill on October 6, 2026, by 327 votes to 122. On October 14, the Senate’s joint Economy and Legislative Studies committees approved it 19 to 8. A Senate floor vote and publication in the Diario Oficial are still needed before it takes effect, so check for updates.
Over to you, girlies
On paper, it’s a dream for anyone who’s ever pitched «inclusion» in a deck: instant rails, QR everywhere and onboarding with your CURP. But every digital peso also leaves a trail, and this law hands the government a lot of new windows into where that trail goes.
So what do you think: is this really financial inclusion, or just another voracious way for the government to get access to our information and boost tax collection? Hit reply and tell me which side you’re on. 💅
