Conekta Gets CNBV Approval in Mexico to Operate as a Direct Non-Bank Acquirer

After 14 years in Mexico’s payments infrastructure market, Conekta has received authorization from the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) to operate as a direct non-bank acquirer. For high-risk merchants and PSPs, the practical point is simple: Conekta can now connect directly to card networks instead of routing acquiring through a bank.

1. Conekta says it has processed more than $15,000 million in 428 million transactions for more than 8,000 merchants. That is the scale behind the move, and it matters because acquiring permissions are not just regulatory badges; they change who controls the payment flow.
2. Until now, Conekta had to rely on a bank acquirer, which connects merchants or aggregators to the infrastructure used to send authorization requests to issuing banks and then settle approved transactions. With the new status, Conekta can take on those functions directly.
3. Héctor Cárdenas, founder and CEO of Conekta, framed the approval as the result of building its own structure rather than continuing to adapt to an old one. “When we started, to charge online in Mexico you had to operate on a structure that was not designed for digital commerce. Fourteen years later, instead of continuing to adapt to that structure, we built our own,” he said.
4. Conekta is joining a growing non-bank acquiring segment in Mexico. Kushki received CNBV authorization as a non-bank acquirer in 2023, while Klu announced in 2025 its transition from aggregator to non-bank acquirer.
5. As of December 2025, Mexico had 19 bank acquirer institutions and 15 non-bank acquirers, according to Banco de México. For PSPs serving high-risk verticals, that split is the real map of the market: who can accept cards, who can settle, and who can do it without a bank sitting in the middle.