Building an instant loan origination flow in Mexico — which APIs are needed and in what order?
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This is exactly the stack I built 18 months ago. Let me go through each piece:
1. KYC: Metamap (formerly Mati) or Truora. Metamap has better INE validation accuracy and liveness detection. Both return a webhook when the verification is complete.
2. Credit bureau: You need both Buró de Crédito and Círculo de Crédito. About 15% of borrowers appear in one bureau but not the other. Kredito offers a wrapper that queries both with one call.
3. Decision engine: Build rule-based in-house first (bureau score thresholds, debt-to-income, employment pattern from banking API). Add ML scoring later once you have 500+ funded loans.
4. E-signature: CINCEL or Autofirma for SAT e.firma. For basic personal loans, OTP-based click-to-sign is legally sufficient under NOM-151 and faster for conversion.
5. Disbursement: Yes, SPEI to CLABE. Use Conekta, OpenPay, or direct banking API. Typically settles in 10–30 seconds.
6. Collections (domiciliación): The hardest part. BBVA and Banorte have APIs for mandate registration. For others you need an aggregator.
Adding a credit risk perspective: the bureau response includes not just a score but also historical payment behaviour data (tradeline detail). Parse this carefully — a borrower with a low score but a clean recent 6-month history may be a better risk.
Consider doing a "soft pull" scorecard first using banking API data and only running the bureau query for applicants who pass that initial filter.
Recommended starting approval policy (MXN 5k–50k loans)
- Bureau score ≥ 620 (Buró de Crédito scale)
- No derogatory marks in last 6 months
- Debt-to-income ≤ 40%
- Employment income ≥ 2× monthly instalment (from banking API cash-flow)
Really helpful, thank you both.
On domiciliación — if a borrower banks at Scotiabank MX or Inbursa, can I still set up automatic debit, or are some banks just not supported? Do you fall back to manual payment reminders?
On soft-pull: is that a standard product both bureaus offer, or is it only available through aggregators like Kredito?
Scotiabank MX and Inbursa do support domiciliación but through SPEI-based direct debit (CEP-based), not through a direct API. The borrower must provide digital consent first.
For banks not on your direct API list, the fallback is: SMS/push reminder 3 days before due date, WhatsApp on due date, call on day +1 if not paid. ~70% of borrowers pay before day +3 of delinquency using this flow.
Soft-pull products available from Mexico credit bureaus
Both bureaus do have soft-pull products but they're branded differently:
- Buró de Crédito: "Consulta Especial" — returns score and flag indicators without recording a hard inquiry.
- Círculo de Crédito: "Perfil de Riesgo" — similar concept.
Access requires a data-use agreement with each bureau. If you're working through an aggregator like Kredito, ask specifically whether their query product uses hard or soft pull.
BNPL as an alternative to building a full lending stack
Just to add one thing on the BNPL side: if your product is checkout-embedded BNPL, the stack is simpler because you outsource the credit decision and collections to the BNPL provider.
Kueski Pay and Aplazo both have merchant-facing APIs. They handle KYC/scoring/disbursement/collections, and you receive the full purchase amount upfront minus a ~5–6% discount fee.
The trade-off: you give up control of the credit product and the borrower relationship. If you want to own that, the full stack described above is the right path.
I'm architecting a digital lending product for Mexico targeting personal loans (MXN 5,000–50,000, 3–12 months). The goal is a fully digital flow that completes in under 5 minutes.
Looking for advice on the Mexico loan API stack:
Is there a single platform that covers most of these, or is it always stitched together from multiple providers?