Intercam Jumps The Shark

Financial institutions throwing temper tantrums

Intercam is a popular bank for foreigners living in Mexico. Intercam is really a banking institution designed for foreigners. They make it very easy for foreigners to open an account, and to keep both Mexican pesos and your home country's currency in separate accounts. So, for example, if you are a U.S. citizen living in Mexico, you can open an Intercam account, and you can put your living expenses in your Intercam U.S. dollars account, and when you need pesos, you can convert some of those U.S. dollars to pesos and put them in your Mexican pesos account. They'll also give you checks and a debit card; you can withdraw money with your debit card in Mexican ATMs without incurring a foreign transaction fee, and if you happen to find someone who accepts checks, well, you can write them a check.

There has always been a big drawback with Intercam though: the only way to fund your foreign currency (e.g. U.S. dollar) account is to do a wire transfer; and when you convert your foreign currency to pesos, Intercam gives you a usurious conversion rate - often a point below mid-market currency rates. And, you can only perform the currency conversion during banking hours, because you have to email or call your banker and tell them that you want to move money from your U.S. dollars account to your pesos account.

But for a long time, there has been a work-around for the whole wire transfer/lousy conversion rate thing: Wise (formerly TransferWise). Wise is a fintech service that allows you to hold tons of different currencies in your Wise account, and to convert between currencies at a very good conversion rate (Wise charges a percent of the conversion, but the rate still beats pretty much any traditional bank's - and it beats Intercam by a long shot). So with Wise, you can convert dollars to pesos, and then transfer those pesos directly to your Intercam peso account. That just saved you both the wire fee (and the 3-4 days it takes to wire funds), and Intercam's awful currency conversion rates.

Sounds great - what's the problem?

Well, this is where Intercam jumped the shark (if your not familiar with shark jumping terminology, here you go): yesterday, Intercam sent an email to its customers who use Wise to transfer money to their Intercam account telling them that if they continue to do this, Intercam will close their accounts. They offered some totally artificial sounding justification for why they are doing this, but it really comes down to this: Intercam wants to make money off of the currency conversion rates it is giving you, and customers who use Wise are circumventing that awful rate.

So what's the solution?

As I said, Intercam makes it very easy for foreigners to open a Mexican bank account. But Intercam isn't the only option. In fact, many foreign residents find that they don't need any traditional bank account in Mexico. Fintech services like Wise and DolarApp will provide you with pretty much everything you need: credit cards, debit cards (although I have found that Wise's debit card is almost completely useless in Mexico; I think I've found only one ATM that accepts it, and I can't recall what ATM that was...), a CLABE number (CLABE is Mexico's mechanism for doing bank-to-bank transfers; one often pays vendors by doing a CLABE transfer from your bank to the vendor's bank - it is super easy and convenient), direct transfers from your traditional financial institutions, access to multiple accounts, etc.

So why not just use Wise and DolarApp?

I mostly do. But ATM cards are the problem. I've been using an Intercam ATM card because my Wise ATM card is pretty much summarily rejected by Mexican ATMs. And DolarApp doesn't have an ATM card.

OK, stop complaining and tell us how to get an ATM card

Yes, you're right. Offer solutions, not problems. Well, the most straightforward solution is to just go to a different bank. Even though Intercam makes it easy, it isn't the only option. If you have the right documents - passport, residency papers, a utility bill showing your address in Mexico - you can get an account at any large Mexican bank: BBVA, Santander, Citibanamex, Banorte, etc. It might just take longer and there may be more bureaucracy involved. I am a Mexican citizen, and I use (until yesterday) an Intercam account because - as I said - it was really easy, and I'm lazy and will go to great measures to avoid sitting in a bank branch for hours waiting for a banker to call my number just so I can be told that one of my documents is not in order so that I can have the pleasure of playing the waiting game another day and probably even another day after that. But, I'm going to BBVA tomorrow.

Another option, as I mentioned, is to just do without a bank account. Get Wise and a Wise debit card, and stick that debit card into every ATM in sight until you find one that actually accepts it. Then, unlike me, write the name of that ATM down so you can visit it again and again. Oh, and tell me what ATM it is 🙂.

R.I.P Intercam

Fintech is huge in Mexico - it is growing here so fast, that there are entire newsletters devoted to Mexican fintech. Ignoring it or, worse, rejecting it like Intercam is doing, seems like a form of business suicide. It runs counter to what customers want, and what the market is clamoring for - simpler, more customer-focused and more transparent financial institutions. Honestly, I don't see how Intercam is going to get away with this and keep its customers. And until they change their minds, my advice is to steer way clear of Intercam.