Mexico General Provisions Applicable to Financial Technology Institutions

The CUITF is not the whole Mexican Fintech Law. It is a secondary regulation that operationalizes selected parts of that law for institutions of financing colectivo and institutions of electronic payment funds. Its opening article states that the instrument establishes the regulatory framework applicable to the organization of ITFs and the operation of crowdfunding institutions. In practice, it sets field-level rules on authorization files, shareholder and management information, minimum capital, accounting standards, valuation, financial disclosure, risk acknowledgments, crowdfunding limits, mandates, commissions, and operational continuity.

The regulation requires ITF applicants to submit information beyond the statutory application package, including business plans, three-year financial viability studies, proposed manuals for operations, internal control and risk management, and supporting information for proposed directors, administrators and controlling shareholders. These provisions are designed to give the CNBV materials to assess the proposed institution, its management, its technology infrastructure and the source of shareholder funds.

The CUITF distinguishes between institutions authorized for more limited operations and institutions authorized for broader activities. The original text set minimum capital at 500,000 UDIs for certain single-operation crowdfunding institutions and comparable electronic payment fund institutions, and 700,000 UDIs for institutions authorized for multiple crowdfunding operations, virtual-asset operations, foreign-currency operations or certain derivatives activity with virtual assets as an underlying asset.

The regulation is relevant to crypto because it includes virtual assets within its accounting and valuation framework. It addresses valuation of securities, financial instruments and virtual assets held on an ITF balance sheet, including use of price providers, internal valuation models and fair-value recognition. Those provisions sit alongside broader Mexican restrictions and authorizations under the Fintech Law and Banco de México rules; the CUITF should therefore be read as an institutional prudential and reporting rule, not as a standalone authorization to offer crypto services.

For crowdfunding institutions, the CUITF requires an electronic acknowledgment from investors confirming knowledge of investment risks before contracting. It also addresses methodologies for evaluating, selecting and rating applicants and projects, and sets limits on the amount a single applicant may obtain through crowdfunding platforms. These provisions support investor disclosure and platform governance but do not remove the underlying investment risk.

The original regulation was published on September 10, 2018. Its main provisions entered into force on September 25, 2018, while the accounting chapter was phased in from January 1, 2020. A July 24, 2025 amendment revised the rules for temporary special accounting criteria and special accounting records, including requests tied to natural-disaster impacts, financial remediation or corporate restructuring. A separate September 9, 2025 amendment updated accounting criteria and regulatory reports for crowdfunding and electronic payment fund institutions; secondary reporting states that those accounting changes entered into force on January 1, 2026.

As of June 30, 2026, Mexican regulatory-review materials also show a proposal updated on June 23, 2026, to simplify requests for special accounting criteria and special accounting records by adding formats and reducing response periods. Editors should monitor whether that proposal is later published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación and incorporated into the consolidated CUITF.

This profile treats the CUITF as an in-force Mexican regulation relevant to fintech licensing, payments, crowdfunding, financial disclosure, governance and virtual-asset accounting. It does not summarize the separate AML/CFT provisions under Article 58 of the Fintech Law, Banco de México’s virtual-asset rules, or consumer-protection rules issued by CONDUSEF except where those instruments are contextually related.