Profeco: Finabien pays the most on a $400 remittance
Profeco compared money-transfer companies at the president's morning briefing and flagged gas stations selling premium at nearly 30 pesos a liter ($1.63).
Send $400 to Mexico through Finabien, the company run by the government's Bienestar finance agency, and the recipient gets more pesos than with any other firm in a new comparison from Profeco, the federal consumer protection agency: 7 483.64 pesos, deposited into a bank account or sent by transfer. Profeco presented its monthly remittance ranking at President Claudia Sheinbaum's Oct. 19 morning briefing.
Ria Money Transfer pays the least for that kind of delivery, 7 132.95 pesos, Profeco's calculator shows. The gap is 350.69 pesos (about $19) on the same transfer.
The exercise covered about 15 companies and draws on Profeco's public tool for comparing fees and average exchange rates. Prices and exchange rates on the slide are from Oct. 15, when Banxico's benchmark FIX rate was 18.43 pesos per dollar. Profeco did not say which city the simulated transfer started from.
| Delivery method | Company | Pesos received | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank deposit | Finabien | 7 483.64 | First |
| Bank deposit | Ria Money Transfer | 7 132.95 | Last |
| Cash pickup | Pagafon SmartPay | 7 456.87 | First |
| Cash pickup | Jum | 7 160.23 | Last |
The amounts move mostly with the dollar's price on the day simulated, so one month's ranking is not comparable with another's.
Premium gasoline
The same segment turned to fuel. Profeco says its inspectors keep visiting gas stations, some already named at earlier briefings, and have found stations selling premium gasoline above 30 pesos a liter ($1.63). Premium is not covered by the national price agreement between the president and gas station owners. Station owners pay an average of 25.06 pesos a liter ($1.36) for it, according to the presentation, and one station shown sells it at nearly 30, a margin of about 5 pesos (27 cents). The tax break on fuel is meant for consumers, not for owners to pocket more, the agency argued.
Profeco will keep up the visits in the coming days and weeks, and plans to add a premium-gasoline layer to its online price map, which now shows only diesel and regular gasoline.
