Overview
- On Thursday the Asociación de Bancos de México publicly denied it sets interchange rates and said the eight merchant categories that currently have a 0% interchange incentive will remain unchanged.
- Reporting and internal documents had shown a proposed reclasification that would move education from a 0% incentive to standard merchant rates, with cited figures of about 0.75% for debit and 1.12% for credit and an October implementation mentioned in earlier coverage.
- Private-school groups and parent organizations warned the reclassification would raise school costs and could be passed to families, with sector estimates saying a school of roughly 300 students could face about 100,000 pesos a year in added fees.
- Regulatory context is shifting separately: Banxico and the CNBV circulated a new draft that eases earlier cuts to interchange by capping credit interchange at 1.30%, keeping a 0.30% cap for debit plus a per-transaction peso cap and a 36-month transition path for issuers.
- The ABM has offered to meet the Confederación Nacional de Escuelas Particulares and urged schools to negotiate acquiring fees in the market even as reporting and documents that suggested a near-term change remain disputed and parents press for transparent timelines and cost details.