Greater financial inclusion helps reduce poverty

Cancún, QR., The banking system and Mexico’s non-banking sector is “much more solid” than a year ago in terms of preventing financing of illicit activities. Controls were reinforced and a “proactive” strategy was turned by the Financial Intelligence Unit, which is in continuous conversation with the United States authorities, emphasized Édgar Amador Zamora, Secretary of the Treasury and Public Credit, when asked about what has been done in the matter after the accusations of money laundering made by the US Treasury in 2025.

In interview with The Daythe official – who is at the center of the negotiations with the financial system to promote the injection of 5.6 billion pesos to the Infrastructure Investment Plan for Development with Wellbeing – pointed out that in this second year of the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo the emphasis is on raising all the tools for the economy to grow more, while deepening financial inclusion as a way to continue reducing poverty levels.

Neutral impact due to the rise in energy prices

In a conversation that began with the international context – and the rise in oil prices due to the conflict in the Middle East – Amador Zamora assured that, in the current scenario, the federal government has the capacity to absorb the impact of an increase in the cost of fuel and that the effect on the public balance is neutral. “It will depend a lot on the magnitude, on the variability of prices, on domestic production capacity, but the futures markets mark a few months and I think that within that horizon we are confident of having a neutral impact on public finances.”

Beyond the global uncertainty, in the conversation that took place on the last day of the 89th Banking Convention, the head of the Treasury highlighted the agreements reached with the bankers to take the infrastructure plan presented in February by the President to concrete actions, as well as the sector’s commitments to increase financing in this six-year term from 38 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to 45 percent, in addition to accompanying a digitalization that, specifically, means that “commissions are going to go down for the first time in history.”

At that point, the Secretary of the Treasury explained how digital marks the public policy agenda in 2026. He explained that it will begin with access to the universal system, through the digitization of files and procedures, and from there it will be expanded to payments and credit.

“The benefits of going digital are many and multiple. Access to credit, the ability to build a credit history, weighs much more than any damage (of which there is a risk). The inspection runs, meanwhile, in another way, they should not explain each other,” he concluded.

Behind digitalization, he explained, and offering more economical financial services to the population, lies the task of furthering the escape of more than 13 million Mexicans from poverty. “The strategy of the Wellbeing programs (of the last six years) also translated into financial inclusion. So, we are going to go deeper there,” stressed the secretary.

He compared the data from the 2021 and 2024 National Financial Inclusion Survey – when the percentage of the population with at least one financial product went from 67.8 percent to 76.5 percent -: “a good part of the leap we made was with the Banco del Bienestar. I think we have not commented on that enough. Financial inclusion and poverty reduction go together.”

Tracking each peso for accountability

Asked what identifies the current infrastructure plan, compared to at least a couple of projects carried out during the last administration, the federal official pointed out: “transparency.” The monitoring of each peso in mixed projects (between public and private) will be regulated by the Law for the Promotion of Investment in Strategic Infrastructure for Development with Well-being, sent by the President to Congress.

“That will be very valuable for investors, rating agencies and the general public. Even in terms of accountability. That will allow there to be very clear traceability between the sources and uses of infrastructure resources.”

The first results are seen in the electricity sector, he said, in which the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) had offers six times higher than what they had expected in mixed contracts, the official said.

Regarding Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Amador Zamora considered that beyond the support provided for 2025 and this year, aimed at making the company self-sufficient in 2027, “in a sense, (the public oil company) is already going alone”; For example, he explained the return of Pemex to the markets – after six years – with an issue of 31,500 million pesos in the domestic market.

Aside from the comments raised by the 2025 energy reform, the Secretary of the Treasury maintained that confidence in both companies – CFE and Pemex – is observed in the response to their debt issues, given that, “at the end of the day, they are integrated into the public balance sheet.”

He noted that in the markets, Mexico compares favorably with other economies because it is one of the few that is improving its fiscal metrics.

Only the reduction of one percentage point in the public deficit – if support for Pemex is counted – was the most important since 1995, going from 5.8 percent of GDP to 4.8 percent.

And although Mexico is on that path of fiscal consolidation – reducing the gap between income and expenses –, for the Treasury the emphasis now is not on containing spending, but on growing the economy to also have an impact with a reduction in public debt.

“We should not leave the entire responsibility for the metric to the public debt. We also have to grow the domestic product (…) I think we have been very focused on the numerator (the debt) and we have to put the emphasis on the denominator (the GDP).”

Supervised transactions

After negotiating investments for infrastructure with a union that last year was put under the scrutiny of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) – which sanctioned three financial institutions that practically evaporated: CIBanco, Intercam and Vector Casa de Bolsa –, Amador Zamora assured that the financial system in Mexico is better regulated.

“I am convinced that today we have a much more solid banking and non-banking financial system in terms of preventing the financing of illicit activities (…) We have not had major issues in the banking sector. Nationally, accusations arise against individuals or some legal entities, but I believe that the entire system is much more robust in terms of preventing the financing of illicit activities.”

He recalled that the country is under review by the Financial Action Task Force; However, regarding the results, “we are calm.”

Regarding the estimates for hydrocarbon smuggling, the head of the Treasury considered that the most reliable indicator so far is the one presented in the number of complaints, which reaches 16 billion pesos.