What Is DiMo and What Is It For?
DiMo (Dinero Móvil) is the system Mexico's central bank, Banxico, built to let people send and receive transfers using only the recipient's phone number instead of a CLABE or full account details. Banxico launched it in 2023, and from day one it has run on the same infrastructure as SPEI, Mexico's interbank payment system — so every DiMo transfer is, underneath, a regular SPEI transfer. What changes is only how you capture the recipient's information.
For a business or a person collecting payments by transfer, that solves a real problem: you no longer have to ask every client for their CLABE or memorize an 18-digit account number. You just share a linked phone number, and the money lands in seconds.
How Does DiMo Work, Step by Step?
DiMo works in three stages:
- Linking. The user opens their bank's app, turns on DiMo, and links their phone number to a specific bank account.
- Receiving. To receive money, they simply share that phone number with whoever is paying them. No need to register the sender or generate a code.
- Sending. The payer opens their own banking app, selects the DiMo option, types in the recipient's phone number, enters the amount, and authorizes the transfer with a PIN, fingerprint, or whatever confirmation method their bank uses.
Because the transfer runs on SPEI, it settles almost instantly, even on weekends or in the middle of the night, exactly like any other SPEI transaction.
Requirements to Sign Up for DiMo
To use DiMo you need, at minimum:
- An active account at a bank or institution that already offers DiMo inside its app.
- The bank's app updated to its latest version.
- A phone number of your own, the one you will link to your account.
- An internet connection to complete the linking and the transactions.
- To accept the data-use terms the app shows you when you turn the service on.
A single phone number can only be linked to one account at a time. To move it to a different account or bank, you first have to unlink it, then repeat the sign-up process with the new account.
Which Banks and Institutions Offer DiMo
DiMo isn't tied to one bank — it's a service Banxico makes available to financial institutions, and each one decides when to add it to its own app. The list of banks and fintechs that offer it has kept growing since launch as more institutions finish their technical integration with the system, so the most reliable way to check whether your bank is included is to look for the DiMo option directly inside its app.
If your bank doesn't show DiMo yet, it's likely just a matter of time: Banxico has been rolling institutions in gradually since 2023, so it's worth checking your bank's app every so often to see if the option has shown up.
DiMo vs. CoDi: What's the Difference?
It's easy to mix up DiMo with CoDi, the other payment system Banxico pushed, but they solve different problems:
- CoDi is built for point-of-sale payments: the business generates a QR code or a payment request, and the customer scans or confirms it from their app to pay.
- DiMo is built for person-to-person transfers: there's no code to generate, you just share your linked phone number.
In practice, CoDi saw more limited adoption because it depends on the business generating a charge every single time, while DiMo feels closer to how people were already used to transferring money — just without having to ask for or share a full CLABE. Both systems run on the SPEI infrastructure, the interbank payment system Banxico has operated since 2004.
Is DiMo Safe? Risks and Good Practices
DiMo inherits SPEI's security model: every transaction is logged in Banxico's central system and can be traced with the same mechanisms as any interbank transfer, including a tracking key. Linking a phone number costs nothing, and only the account owner can authorize transfers from their own app, using whatever confirmation method their bank requires.
That said, DiMo doesn't remove fraud risk at the point of contact with a customer. The most common risks don't come from the system itself, but from how people use it:
- Mixing up one phone number for another and sending money to the wrong account.
- Trusting a push notification or a screenshot without confirming the transfer actually settled.
- Sharing a linked phone number in public channels where someone could try to impersonate the business.
Before handing over a product or service paid for through DiMo, treat it like any other SPEI transfer: confirm the exact amount against your bank statement or the matching CEP, not just against a notification on a screen.
How Businesses Use DiMo to Collect Payments
For a business that already collects payments by transfer, adding DiMo as an option cuts friction at checkout: the customer no longer has to copy an 18-digit CLABE off a screen, just type in the phone number linked to the business's account. That matters most in sales made over WhatsApp, social media, or in person, where asking someone to copy a full CLABE by hand leads to typos and abandoned purchases.
The most efficient way to add it is as part of a strategy that combines several payment methods — card, traditional transfer, DiMo, and other digital channels — into a single flow, instead of managing each one separately. That's exactly what a multi-platform payments setup solves: it centralizes a business's collection methods so the sales team doesn't have to switch tools depending on how each customer decides to pay.
And as with any transfer, it's worth closing the loop by verifying the money actually arrived before shipping an order. If your business processes SPEI or DiMo transfers at volume, check out our guide on how to validate a SPEI transfer with Banxico's CEP to see how to confirm each payment without relying on a screenshot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is DiMo, Exactly?
It's Banco de México's service for sending and receiving transfers using only the recipient's phone number instead of a CLABE. It runs on SPEI infrastructure, so every operation settles like a normal interbank transfer.
Does DiMo cost anything?
Linking your phone number to your account is free. Whether the transfer itself carries a fee depends on your bank's own policies, just like with any SPEI transfer.
Can I use DiMo if my bank isn't listed?
No, your institution needs to have already integrated DiMo into its app. If your bank doesn't offer it yet, you can still receive traditional SPEI transfers with your CLABE while it finishes the integration.
What happens if I link my number to the wrong account?
You can unlink the number from your bank's app and re-register it with the correct account. In the meantime, any transfer sent to that number will keep landing in whichever account it's currently linked to.
Are DiMo and CoDi the same system?
No. Both are Banxico initiatives that run on SPEI, but CoDi is built for point-of-sale payments using a QR code, while DiMo is built for person-to-person transfers using only a phone number.
If your business already collects payments by transfer and wants to add DiMo, card, and other methods without complicating checkout or reconciliation, at AISDC we build multi-platform payments solutions that centralize your collection channels and connect with the transfer validation your operation already relies on, including automated OCR-based validation for high-volume businesses.