State-Led,\u00a0Investor-Friendly\u00a0Growth\u00a0(Terms Apply)<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>
At the annual banking convention last week, President Claudia Sheinbaum repeated the administration\u2019s core economic message: macro stability is not enough; Mexico needs faster growth, and it needs growth that translates into what the government calls \u201cshared prosperity\u201d, higher incomes, lower inequality and visible gains in living standards. The policy implication is that public investment alone will not be enough. The administration wants to use the state as an anchor to crowd in private capital, while keeping strategic control in public hands.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
That is the purpose of the newly proposed Law for the Promotion of Investment in Strategic Infrastructure for Development with Well-being. In practical terms, the bill would create a dedicated legal framework for mixed public-private investment in priority projects,\u00a0establish\u00a0specialized investment vehicles to channel capital, formalise long-duration Strategic Investment Contracts, and create a permanent Strategic Planning Council chaired by the federal executive to prioritize and coordinate projects. The initiative is also paired with changes to the budget framework intended to protect these projects from discretionary cuts once they are underway. In other words, the government is trying to move from ad hoc project structuring to a standing architecture for infrastructure finance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
The attraction for investors is straightforward. The bill is designed to improve bankability: contracts could run for as long as 40 years, projects would sit inside dedicated purpose vehicles that can use trusts, corporations or even market instruments to raise funds, and the government is explicitly promising greater legal certainty around how mixed-capital projects are selected, financed and paid. That is a meaningful shift for a country where infrastructure policy has often been shaped by political discretion, changing priorities and execution bottlenecks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
The scale of the ambition is large. The broader infrastructure plan linked to the initiative targets MXN5.6 trillion in public and mixed investment through 2030, with most of the spending concentrated in energy,\u00a0rail\u00a0and roads. In energy alone, the government says it wants\u00a0roughly 30,000\u00a0megawatts of\u00a0additional\u00a0generation capacity by 2030, combining CFE-led expansion with private participation, while also expanding gas and transmission infrastructure and raising the share of renewables.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
The upside is real. If the bill works as intended, it could reduce one of Mexico\u2019s biggest infrastructure constraints: the lack of a credible pipeline of investable projects with clear risk allocation, long-term revenue\u00a0visibility\u00a0and institutional coordination. Banks have already reacted positively, in part because a more standardized mixed-investment framework could unlock not just project finance for large assets but also more lending into the supplier ecosystem, including SMEs tied to infrastructure buildout.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
But the caveats matter. First, the law does not by itself solve execution risk: a better framework is not the same thing as faster permits, stronger procurement, or technically sound project preparation. Second, the proposal centralizes project\u00a0selection\u00a0around a council led by the presidency, which may improve coordination but also increases political concentration over what counts as \u201cstrategic\u201d infrastructure. Third, shielding projects from budget cuts may help long-term planning, but it could also reduce fiscal flexibility if growth disappoints or public finances come under pressure. Finally, investors will still want clarity on how cash flows are prioritized, how disputes are resolved, how off-take and termination risks are handled, and whether the state\u2019s promise of \u201crector\u00eda\u201d leaves enough room for commercially attractive returns.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
The bill is more serious than a slogan: it attempts to build a permanent legal and financial regime for mixed investment in infrastructure, something Mexico has lacked outside isolated projects. But whether it moves the needle will depend less on the rhetoric of \u201cshared prosperity\u201d than on the quality of the secondary rules, project governance, and the government\u2019s willingness to offer genuine predictability to private capital while preserving political control over the strategic sectors it cares about most.<\/p>
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Getting banks to lend more\u2026<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
Complementing this\u00a0was\u00a0a parallel\u00a0commitment by the\u00a0ABM\u00a0at the Cancun event\u00a0to expand\u00a0credit (from\u00a0the current\u00a038% to 45% of GDP\u00a0by 20230).\u00a0Such promises are more political than\u00a0actually binding. (The ABM does not\u00a0have any power to force banks to lend, and not\u00a0even\u00a0individual banks commit to multiyear credit\/GDP targets.)\u00a0But clearly if\u00a0Mexican\u00a0banks\u00a0fail to\u00a0meet these\u00a0credit\u00a0commitments, they face the risk of a less friendly regulatory environment, so one can assume they will\u00a0make\u00a0an\u00a0effort.\u00a0And anyway,\u00a0as long as\u00a0they avoid too many bad credits, they make more money by expanding credit.\u00a0<\/p>
But to lend more the banks have made it clear they need the government to help\u00a0digitalize\u00a0and formalise the economy.\u00a0(And improve the rule of law \u2013 but that is a subject for another day).\u00a0Without clear financial and tax data\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0hard to extend credit to the millions of\u00a0people and\u00a0SMEs out of the banking system. To that end, the banks received some\u00a0mixed\u00a0news in Cancun.\u00a0On the positive side, the\u00a0government says it is going to\u00a0make\u00a0digital payments\u00a0mandatory in fuel and tolls. On the other hand,\u00a0the banks agreed to forsake (for now) interchange fees on use of cards in gas stations, creating a precedent of lowering or removing\u00a0card\u00a0fees to digitalise the economy,\u00a0help\u00a0offset Iran-driven increases in oil prices.\u00a0Meanwhile the Central Bank says it is going to revamp commission-fee but underwhelming\u00a0CoDi\u00a0and DiMo payments platform (no banks seemed too worried).\u00a0<\/p>
Consultations\u00a0over broader reduction in Interchange fees on credit and debit cards\u00a0were\u00a0postponed\u00a0earlier in\u00a0the year\u00a0in a notable victory for the banking\u00a0establishment\u00a0and card fee-dependent\u00a0FinTechs.\u00a0\u00a0The government\u00a0had\u00a0claimed\u00a0high fees (compared to Europe at least) stop\u00a0small\u00a0retailers accepting\u00a0cards, and\u00a0represent huge and undeserved\u00a0cash cows\u00a0for the large card issuers\u00a0(that some argue remove the pressure\u00a0on banks\u00a0to lend more). The banks\u00a0claims\u00a0these fees underpin the economics of low-cost banking\u00a0and credit card\u00a0access;\u00a0removing them without a\u00a0broader redesign\u00a0of the\u00a0payments\u00a0ecosystem\u00a0risks\u00a0undermining\u00a0financial inclusion rather than expanding it.\u00a0For now, decisions on what to do have been delayed.<\/p>
The fight over interchange\u00a0represents\u00a0a bigger issue \u2013 how best to\u00a0organize the banking system to\u00a0digitalise\u00a0and formalise\u00a0the economy, expand credit,\u00a0boost investment,\u00a0improve tax collection, drive\u00a0productivity\u00a0and\u00a0economic growth. For the banks at stake is around US$18bn of profits, a full third made by BBVA alone.\u00a0\u00a0Their\u00a0objective\u00a0is not just\u00a0preserving\u00a0and growing\u00a0the total profit pool, but\u00a0for some\u00a0maintaining\u00a0rules of the game that keep profits so concentrated in\u00a0favour\u00a0of\u00a0the big\u00a0incumbent names\u00a0(who\u00a0mostly\u00a0control the ABM)\u00a0and for others giving them a chance to better compete.\u00a0For the government,\u00a0economic growth, political support from the 50% of Mexicans outside the formal economy\u00a0and mostly avoiding tax, and the country\u2019s fiscal outlook are\u00a0all\u00a0in play.\u00a0The stakes could not be\u00a0higher.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
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Freeze First, Justify Later<\/b><\/p>
The Supreme Court\u2019s pending ruling on account freezing mechanisms is less about technical banking rules and more about redefining how far administrative power can go before\u00a0breaching\u00a0fundamental rights.\u00a0At the\u00a0center\u00a0is Article 116 Bis 2 of the Law of Credit Institutions, which allows the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) to place individuals on a \u201cblocked persons list\u201d and trigger the immediate suspension of their financial activity. The draft resolution\u00a0leans on\u00a0a key distinction: this is not a sanction, but a precautionary administrative measure. That framing is doing most of the heavy\u00a0lifting, because\u00a0it effectively lowers the bar for state intervention.<\/p>
Under this logic, authorities can act on \u201csufficient indications\u201d without prior judicial\u00a0authorization. Banks are expected to comply in real time\u2014freeze first, notify later. Formal guarantees\u00a0remain\u00a0in place, but they arrive after the fact: affected parties can challenge the decision before the UIF and, eventually, in court. Due process, in practice, is reconfigured as a corrective stage rather than a gatekeeper.<\/p>
This architecture aligns neatly with international anti-money laundering standards, where speed is treated as a feature, not a bug. But it also opens the door to familiar risks. A discretionary evidentiary threshold combined with immediate execution raises the likelihood of overreach, particularly when the consequences\u2014frozen liquidity,\u00a0paralysed\u00a0operations\u2014can ripple across entire businesses before any liability is formally\u00a0established.<\/p>
The ruling also quietly expands the role of financial institutions. Banks are no longer just compliance actors; they become operational arms of enforcement, executing state decisions with limited room for interpretation. That shift carries its own exposure, especially in cases where notifications,\u00a0justifications\u00a0or underlying evidence are contested.<\/p>
At a broader level, the Court is sketching a model in which administrative action comes\u00a0first\u00a0and judicial scrutiny follows. Whether that balance holds will depend less on the principle itself and more on how rigorously \u201csufficient indications\u201d are defined\u2014and how meaningful the promised review mechanisms turn out to be in practice.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>
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Plan B\u00a0or Plan Ballot<\/b><\/p>
The breakthrough came late and, notably, after direct political intervention. Following a meeting convened by the president with PT and PVEM leadership, Morena managed to secure the alignment that had eluded it for days. Shortly after 10 p.m., Senate majority leader Ignacio Mier confirmed that outstanding differences had been reduced to matters of legislative drafting and harmonisation of transitional provisions. The dictamen, he said, would be circulated within hours, alongside the formal call for joint committee sessions to approve it immediately\u2014effectively clearing the path for a fast-tracked approval with no substantive changes.<\/p>
At the centre of Morena\u2019s\u00a0stalled electoral reform lies a politically sensitive\u00a0issue of timing: the\u00a0ruling party\u2019s\u00a0push to allow a presidential recall referendum to coincide with midterm elections\u00a0in 2027. The logic is hardly subtle. Appearing on the ballot would turn the president into a mobilisation anchor for the entire electoral cycle, effectively \u201cmagnetising\u201d votes across races. Yet the risk is equally\u00a0evident. A midterm recall would not simply ratify leadership\u2014it\u00a0could open the door to a broader evaluation of the governing\u00a04T\u00a0project, with outcomes that are less\u00a0predictable\u00a0than the\u00a0initial\u00a0premise suggests.\u00a0<\/p>
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Chatter box<\/b>\u00a0<\/p> \u00a0<\/p> Contacto:<\/b>\u00a0<\/p> Laura Camacho<\/b>\u00a0<\/p> Directora Ejecutiva de Asuntos P\u00fablicos de Miranda\u00a0<\/p>