The definition, straight from the law
The Ley de Instituciones de Crédito (Mexican Credit Institutions Law) reserves the business of banking and credit — defined as "the taking of funds from the public… for their placement with the public, through acts that create a direct or contingent liability" — to authorized institutions (LIC art. 2). And it closes the door with art. 103: no individual or legal entity may take, directly or indirectly, funds from the public through a deposit, loan, credit, mutuo or any other act that obliges them to cover principal and ancillary amounts.
The three elements that make up the scenario:
- Funds from the public — indeterminate third parties, not a closed and qualified circle;
- A direct or contingent liability — you are bound to pay it back;
- Principal and ancillary amounts — with or without a promised return on top.
What you can do (the exceptions and the legal routes)
Art. 103 itself carves out authorized institutions, issuers of securities registered in the RNV (National Securities Registry) placed through a public offering (the securities route) and savings-and-loan cooperatives. Outside the banking law there are also legitimate corporate and private routes to fund a business:
- The founder's or the firm's own capital;
- Capital increases: partners are not "the public" — they buy risk, not a liability with a guaranteed payback;
- Loans negotiated one-on-one with specific persons and documented individually;
- Credit from banks or SOFOMES — borrowing from an institution is not deposit-taking.
The structural difference: in every legal route, either there is no promise of repayment (equity), or the money comes from specific, negotiated counterparties, not from a window open to the public.
What irregular deposit-taking looks like in real life
It is rarely advertised as such. It looks like this: "guaranteed investment of 3% a month, get in with whatever you've got"; expanded tandas (rotating savings pools) with interest; "loans to the company" offered on social media to anyone; schemes where the returns of the first investors are paid with the money of the last. Hard signals: an open offer to the public + a promise of repayment/return + no authorization or prospectus. The ending is well known too: the scheme collapses, the savers lose, and the organizers face art. 111 (7 to 15 years in prison) — plus art. 111 bis if they also held themselves out as a financial institution.
Where Tunton stands
Tunton Fin, S.A.P.I. de C.V. does not take funds from the public. We operate the opposite way to deposit-taking: we deploy our own capital in secured loans, negotiated one-on-one and documented. We do not receive savings, we do not promise returns to the public, we have no "window investors". That line is not a technicality: it is what guarantees you that the firm lending to you does not depend on third parties' money that they could demand back tomorrow — and it is the line this blog exists to explain. If someone offers you the chance to "invest" through a window like that, you now know what to ask: under what authorization are you taking deposits?