Technical Inclusion: The New Competitive Frontier in Finance

For years, the conversation about financial inclusion in Mexico and Latin America has focused on a fundamental question: How do we get more people access to the formal financial system? The good news is that this access has grown significantly. In Mexico, for example, the proportion of adults with bank accounts increased from 36% in 2012 to 76.5% in 2024. Across the region, the number is already above 80% in 2025. But despite this progress, true inclusion remains elusive.

Many Mexicans continue to be "poorly served," excluded not due to a lack of will, but due to a combination of outdated technology, inefficient structures, and business decisions that don't consider the diversity of real needs. This is the great paradox. The more people theoretically have access to financial services, the fewer people feel that those services are designed for them. Why? Because the infrastructure that supports them isn't designed for everyone.

At Galileo Financial Technologies, we believe that the next frontier of financial inclusion is not ideological or regulatory, but technical, and represents both a threat and an opportunity for financial institutions in Mexico.

The Hidden Costs of Technical Exclusion

Through the Galileo Technical Inclusion Index, we surveyed more than 600 CTOs and CIOs in key sectors such as banking, telecommunications, retail, and hospitality, including more than 50 business leaders in Mexico. What we found was revealing: 54.6% of respondents in Latin America believe they are losing at least 10% of their business potential due to technical barriers that prevent them from offering truly inclusive products and services. A quarter of them believe this loss exceeds 20%.

And we're not just talking about lost revenue. We're talking about stalled innovation, as 61.4% of respondents reported that five or more projects targeting new segments were canceled or delayed in the last 12 months due to technical limitations. In Mexico, this slowdown particularly affects sectors such as retail, hotels, and food services, where 50% of leaders spend more than half of their IT budget on maintaining legacy systems.

Old Systems, Exclusive Experiences

Where is the bottleneck? Legacy systems. Among Mexican telecommunications sector leaders, 76.5% recognize that their current systems limit their ability to offer truly inclusive experiences. And this isn't limited to outdated technology: 58.7% identify data silos and lack of interoperability as the biggest obstacles to progress.

Technical exclusion manifests itself in many ways, such as applications that don't work on all devices, platforms that crash on key dates, services that don't consider users with disabilities, experiences that generate distrust in historically marginalized sectors, and so on. It is a silent but persistent exclusion.

Change is Underway

Despite this outlook, there are signs of transformation. Nearly 70% of respondents say that updating their systems to serve a more diverse customer base is already a priority. Even more interesting, only 50.5% expect to encounter internal resistance if a complete modernization with a focus on inclusion were to be implemented. The will is there, but the execution is lacking.

In Mexico, sectors such as IT and telecommunications are leading the change. Among leaders in this field, 94.1% agree that their ability to serve a diverse customer base depends on the state of their technical infrastructure. Hospitality and tourism are not far behind. Seventy-five percent of respondents acknowledge that concerns about security vulnerabilities hinder their ability to make services more accessible.

Inclusion as a Competitive Advantage

The question isn't whether we should modernize, it's how much value you're leaving on the table if you don't. In a market like Mexico, where the majority of the population is already connected (81.4% have a mobile phone and 69.1% use mobile banking), the opportunities lie in the details: a better user experience, a frictionless app, seamless onboarding, an interface designed for seniors, for rural communities, for everyone.

At Galileo, we see technical inclusion as a growth strategy, far beyond simple regulatory compliance. Companies that manage to break the limits imposed by legacy technology will be the ones that conquer the segments that are currently underserved.

Modernizing technical infrastructure with a focus on inclusion is not an easy task, but it is necessary. Companies that anticipate and act quickly will build a broader and more loyal customer base and lead the narrative of a new kind of inclusion, one measured by access, quality, equity, and relevance.