Our valued sponsor

Bank Accounts in Mexico

Depends on who you are. A lot of things are possible if you show up in person with a lot of money with good documentation to back it up.

If you have a startup Seychelles company that does affiliate marketing, they won't listen.

If you have a business turning over millions and are interested in a Mexican bank account to access USD and/or do business regionally, you might have a shot.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CyprusCorporateGuy
Impossible to open an account without the CURP (sort of SSN in Mexico) and to get it you must have a residence visa (FM2, FM3 or FMM); they have a lot of EMI (Klar, Albo, Cuenca, Flink just to name some local EMI) and initially they could open a remote account just with the passport, but now with the new Fintech law they require the CURP.
 
Impossible to open an account without the CURP (sort of SSN in Mexico) and to get it you must have a residence visa (FM2, FM3 or FMM); they have a lot of EMI (Klar, Albo, Cuenca, Flink just to name some local EMI) and initially they could open a remote account just with the passport, but now with the new Fintech law they require the CURP.

Sounds like the procedure for banking is very standard for LATAM, it's similar in most of the countries except for Panama, Uruguay, and Belize.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CyprusCorporateGuy
Impossible to open an account without the CURP (sort of SSN in Mexico) and to get it you must have a residence visa (FM2, FM3 or FMM); they have a lot of EMI (Klar, Albo, Cuenca, Flink just to name some local EMI) and initially they could open a remote account just with the passport, but now with the new Fintech law they require the CURP.
Hello and thanks for your reply,

Is this the case for Corporate Accounts for legal entities too?
 
Wonder why you don't want to go to Mexico if you are pushing millions as you claim? Any businessman with such money available would not think twice if he had to take a flight to Mexico to open an account.
 
Hello and thanks for your reply,

Is this the case for Corporate Accounts for legal entities too?
Dear my pleasure.
TBH I only had to handle with personal accounts, but anyway for any financial step in Mexico you ALWAYS need the CURP.
Eventually the business account could be opened from a company’s Mexican partner (or CURP holder anyway).
Like somebody suggests in the thread, if you talk with HSBC and say you are willing to transfer millions of $ they COULD close both eyes, but I have no idea how since CURP is mandatory.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hc99
Not that I've ever heard of but if you work with a local fiduciary/attorney, you might be able to do it remotely.

It really is a place where you should be present in order to establish relationships and do business.
do you happen to have any contacts of local fiduciaries / attorneys that you can share?

Question goes for all the participants of this thread, you can PM me if you have anything.

Again, thanks to everyone for your feedback.
 
Hsbc is under scrutiny in mx because of laundering drug money. Yes you always need a curp but you can generate one online. Foreigners need a visa and the bank also wants to see your passport. Beware of holding large amounts in a mx bank account because the bank employees sell you out in a blink of the eye.
Tried CURP generators online, they are matched with other docs including INE, they don’t work.
 
Most major banks now require a copy of the RFC document when opening a bank account. The RFC is a tax identification number and is used to identify companies and people for tax purposes. You will need a CURP to obtain the RFC. Wise has a decent article explaining the differences between a CURP and RFC here.

A few years ago banks didn't care and generated an RFC number for you (which the government didn't like and wasn't your official RFC number). However, the government recently became more strict with the RFC likely in response to the influx of Argentinians, Venezuelans and Central Americans opening accounts.

It's also worth mentioning for privacy conscious people that the Mexican government has forced all banks to require geolocation to be enabled to access banking services. This means that for all mobile-banking apps, you need to allow the app to access your GPS location.

With online banking, some banks like BBVA even require browser geolocation to be enabled. So far, Santandar and HSBC don't seem to have the geolocation requirement for online banking.
 
Correct , in the past rfc and curp could be generatrd by anyone. At least tbey fixed that. I opened a personal bank account last week and no rfc needed. Just curp, resident card and passport and a utility bill which dont need to be in your name. You can process a temporary residency and get a curp and rfc with that.
 
Americans and canadians live in mexico but very few do buziness there. And with reason. And above all: they have a mx bank account just for petty cash.
Personally known a lot doing biz there, all main Silicon Valley VCs have opened an office in Mexico City, and Monterrey and Guadalajara are high tech cities, Mx graduates more STEM students than US. Plenty of westerns, including Germans that remained in MX and started biz after working for car manufacturers, chemical industry etc.