Mexico’s CNBV reportedly facing legal action over delays publishing open finance rules
Banxico, Mexico’s central bank, and the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV), the country’s financial system regulator, are reportedly facing legal action from a Mexican citizen for failing to publish secondary provisions on the country’s open finance framework.
The complaint has reportedly been issued by a Mexican citizen
The pair were instrumental in the creation of Mexico’s Fintech Law, which was published in March 2018.
Article 76 of this law supports a model for open finance that promotes the use of APIs as a means to allow financial institutions to more easily share different types of data.
This includes the sharing of financial, aggregate and transactional data, with the ambition of creating a wider range of financial services.
Above all, the regulation is Mexico’s attempt to cultivate a better connected, more transparent and more competitive fintech landscape, and both Banxico and CNBV garnered praise for their efforts in its creation.
However, recent reports suggest that the pair have now been hit with a complaint for failing to follow through with parts of the regulation.
Secondary rules
As part of its role in guiding the installation of the Fintech Law, CNBV was tasked with publishing secondary rules for Article 76. These secondary rules would standardise data sharing between different companies and different APIs while encouraging the growth of Mexico’s open finance ecosystem.
CNBV initially had 24 months to publish these rules, but five years on, they still have yet to be finalised.
The regulator did however issue secondary provisions in 2020 concerning the sharing of data collected from banking insights and ATMs, which was followed by Banxico publishing guidelines for the standardisation of API data for clearing houses and credit information societies in the same year.
Now, according to local news outlet El Economista, Mexican citizen Juan Pablo Ybarra Llamas is pursuing the matter in court. Llamas, who has held various positions within the fintech industry, reportedly filed his complaint with the District Courts of Quintana Roo on 21 June 2023.
In a translation of his statement, as reported by El Economista, Llamas claims that CNBV’s delay in publishing the secondary rules “violates my human right to access financial services that contribute to my development” – a stipulation recognised by Article 4 of the Constitution.
He reportedly goes on to say that the current lack of rules around the operation of standardised computer APIs “limits my ability to choose between a greater offer and diversity of financial products and services that adapt to my needs and preferences”.
The outcome of this claim, and Banxico and CNBV’s reaction to it, is yet to be seen.
