Moving stablecoins in Mexico is legal. The risk is who you move them with

Every few weeks someone in treasury asks me the same question: is it legal to move stablecoins in Mexico? The question is framed wrong, and answering it badly is expensive.

Eight years ago, when the Fintech Law was published, the answer looked simple: yes, as long as the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) authorised it. Eight years on, that authorisation never came, not for a single virtual asset. And yet Mexico has one of the largest digital asset markets in Latin America.

Here is what I see: Mexico does not ban digital assets. What was never switched on is the route the law itself designed to operate them inside the regulated financial system. That shifts the whole custody and counterparty risk onto the treasurer, and almost nobody says it in those words.

The myth: “it’s banned”

The Law to Regulate Financial Technology Institutions, known as the Fintech Law, was published in the Official Gazette on 9 March 2018 and took effect days later. Its article 30 defines a virtual asset: a representation of value recorded electronically and used among the public as a means of payment, which can never be legal tender or foreign currency. The same article says something almost nobody reads to the end: Financial Technology Institutions (ITF), the term article 4 uses for Electronic Payment Funds Institutions (IFPE) and Crowdfunding Institutions (IFC), may only operate with the virtual assets that Banxico determines through general provisions.

In other words, the law does not authorise virtual assets. It gives Banxico the power to authorise them, whenever Banxico decides to.

What Banxico says, in its own words

Banxico never issued those provisions. On its official site, in the section on virtual assets, the central bank is explicit: it holds that financial institutions in Mexico should not take positions in those assets, may not accept them as collateral and may not use them to finance the public. It speaks of keeping a healthy distance between virtual assets and the financial system.

That position is neither new nor ambiguous. In June 2021, Banxico, the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) and the Ministry of Finance (SHCP) issued a joint statement reminding banks that no financial institution is authorised to offer the public operations with Bitcoin, Ether or other virtual assets, stablecoins included. Five years later the position is unchanged: no IFPE, IFC or credit institution in Mexico operates virtual assets today with Banxico’s authorisation under article 30.

Where the real risk sits for a treasurer

Here is the point that matters to whoever moves treasury, and that the legal debate rarely connects to daily operations: because no regulated financial institution may operate virtual assets, Mexico’s entire digital asset market, exchange platforms, wallets and buy and sell services, operates as a non-financial entity. Banxico itself acknowledges this: the regulation does not prevent companies other than financial institutions from offering virtual asset trading services, and that is how they can be accessed in Mexico, at the risk of whoever decides to transact.

What does that mean in practice? The provider your treasury moves stablecoins with is supervised by the CNBV neither as a bank nor as an IFPE. That does not mean it has no obligations: article 17, section XVI of the Anti-Money Laundering Law (LFPIORPI) classifies the habitual and professional exchange of virtual assets by a non-financial entity as a “vulnerable activity”, which requires registering in the vulnerable activities registry, identifying customers and filing reports. That regime is overseen by the SHCP, through the UIF and the SAT, not by the CNBV, and it is considerably lighter than the one a bank or an IFPE carries under the Fintech Law. On top of that, those funds are not covered by Mexico’s bank deposit insurance, and if the provider fails, freezes or is taken over, the legal recourse available is not the one you would have against a bank.

To be clear: the problem is not legality, it is where your money stands when something goes wrong.

What to check before moving treasury to a digital asset provider

Before the next operation, five things are worth checking with the provider:

• Whether it is a regulated financial institution or not.
• Where and under what rules it holds the funds.
• Whether it is registered in the vulnerable activities registry with the SAT under article 17, section XVI of the LFPIORPI, and whether it can show you the certificate along with its compliance manual.
• How it identifies its customers and files its reports with the UIF.
• Whether funds always move between the company’s own accounts or pass through third parties.

You will almost never find these answers in a formal document, so ask for them in writing and be wary of a “not applicable” that comes with no explanation behind it.

The practical difference is this: a regulated financial institution in Mexico, an IFPE for example, answers to the CNBV, follows the same anti-money laundering rules as a bank and has a clear framework if something goes wrong. A non-financial provider complies, at best, with the vulnerable activity regime before the UIF, and supervision ends there: nobody monitors its solvency or how it holds your money. What happens to your funds depends on the contract you signed and on the country where that provider actually operates.

What a treasurer should take from all this

The point is not to avoid digital assets, it is to stop treating them as a legal grey area. In the end it is a decision about who you work with, not about whether something is allowed.

Francesco Maresca runs cross-border payment corridors in Mexico and Colombia for efy. Treasurers and fintech founders ask him this question almost every week.

Sources

• Law to Regulate Financial Technology Institutions, articles 4 and 30. Official Gazette of the Federation, 9 March 2018
• Federal Law for the Prevention and Identification of Operations with Resources of Illicit Origin (LFPIORPI), article 17, section XVI
• Bank of Mexico, “On virtual assets, the relevant risks and the position of the Bank of Mexico”
• Joint statement by the SHCP, Banxico and the CNBV on virtual assets, 28 June 2021
• IUPANA, “Cripto México: Informe de la regulación”, August 2025

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