Mexican ETF Market Set for Growth as Pensions Embrace Active

Ivan Castano

Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 5:00 AM 3 min read

The Mexican ETF market is poised for strong growth after regulators cleared pension funds, or "Afores," to invest in U.S. and international active exchange-traded funds.

While actual investments won't begin until next year (regulators are still deciding final rules), the head of tech-focused Mexican exchange BIVA, Alvaro Martinez, expects flows into U.S. active funds to surge.

Roughly 25 billion Mexican pesos (or $1.3 billion at current exchange) trade daily on the Mexican Stock Exchange. About 45% of that, or $585 million, swaps hands on the international market or SIC, which provides locals with access to the likes of Apple Inc. (AAPL) or Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), as well as passive ETFs, Martinez said in a phone interview.

Under the SIC, 1,600 index-based ETFs are cross-listed, and 2,100 global stocks are available for trading.

The first active ETF customers will be Mexico's top Afores, especially those with existing custodial relationships in the U.S., Martinez said. Some of these include Profuturo, Afore XXI Banorte, Afore CitiBanamex, Afore Sura and AFP Proteccion.

The Mexican developments come as U.S. investors are pouring into LatAm-focused ETFs to diversify from U.S. risk and profit from low regional valuations.

The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) has drawn $628.4 million year to date, followed by the Global X MSCI Argentina ETF (ARGT), which has lured $150.6 million as Argentina recovers from a recession. The Franklin FTSE Brazil ETF (FLBR) followed with $22.3 million, while the iShares MSCI Chile ETF (ECH) ranked fourth with $8.2 million.

This is according to Deborah Fuhr, founder of ETF research firm ETFGI, who spoke to etf.com shortly after hosting the 6th Annual ETFGI Global ETFs Insights Summits—Latin America on May 21. The event, which took place in BIVA's headquarters, gathered industry leaders to discuss the region's growth potential.

"The expectation is that Mexico and other Latin American markets are going to grow," said Fuhr. "If you look at Mexico, we have seen a very significant increase in the number of retail accounts opened in the past five years (from 250,000 to about 16 million) and ETFs cross-listed in the Mexican SIC segment."

A new South American exchange called NUAM, for which MSCI has already launched an index, was another conference highlight.

The region's answer to Euronext, NUAM will merge the Chilean, Colombian and Peruvian bourses into a single market featuring 450 blue-chip companies worth $330 billion. Set for a December launch, NUAM will "complete investors' Latin American portfolio," mostly concentrated on Brazil and Mexico, said client relations director Miguel Zapatero.