Colombia sets roadmap for open finance

Colombia's Financial Superintendency said it will publish the timeline for issuing information exchange standards for Open Finance, under Decree 0368 of 2026. The rollout will be gradual and coordinated, and each stage will depend on compliance with cybersecurity, data privacy and financial stability standards.

How is the roadmap being built?

The roadmap is being developed through seven technical working groups held between June and July 2026, with more than 157 organizations participating, including traditional supervised institutions and fintech players, Financial Superintendent Pablo Rivas told La República. The regulator also framed it as a strategic alliance with the industry to address obstacles in technology architecture, data quality and regulatory definitions.

That design is not limited to Open Finance. According to El País, the Financial Superintendency linked the process to its role in drafting a bill on digital assets and in specialized working groups to tokenize assets in the securities market and the agricultural sector. In that context, supervised entities and fintech firms operating in those segments will have to adapt to both data exchange rules and new tokenization requirements.

What tools does the regulator plan to use?

The Financial Superintendency said it will use the Regulatory Sandbox and the Innovation Hub so supervised entities and fintech companies can test new business models under supervision before going to market. El Heraldo explicitly tied those testing spaces to the Open Finance roadmap.

The agency also posted a summary of its action plan on X. It said it will use technology and artificial intelligence to strengthen supervision, promote innovation, enable new business models and advance the gradual implementation of Open Finance.

What pressure is building around digital assets?

Portafolio reported that the regulator has been working on regulatory tools to respond to the growth of digital assets and to the lack of consumer protection caused by the absence of specific regulation. Bloomberg Línea added that the Superintendency acknowledges that financial consumers are already unprotected in that area and that any regulatory progress will have to uphold system security and consumer protection criteria.

That backdrop also aligns with UNIR's academic view, which notes that as of June 2026 the Superintendency maintained that cryptoassets are not currency or legally recognized money, and that their trading is generally neither regulated nor supervised. The announced roadmap points, then, to a more explicit framework for authorizing and supervising digital asset service providers.

Who will be affected by the change?

The regulatory update will affect a growing universe of digital-native players. La República and Bloomberg Línea both note that between January 2018 and August 2026 the Superintendency authorized 22 new supervised entities with a digital profile, including neobanks, payment institutions, crowdfunding platforms and fully digital insurers.

Portafolio also recalled that regulated fintech firms that take deposits from the public must hold a license from the Superintendency and that their deposits are covered by Fogafín insurance. That places part of the ecosystem under a prudential umbrella similar to traditional banking, while other unregulated fintech firms remain outside it for now.

What signals did the authority give on supervision and control?

The Superintendency said in its 2026 press release list that on July 6 it updated supervision and control tools against money laundering in the financial system. It also said in its 2026 Resolutions section that its resolutions are general administrative acts that are mandatory for all supervised entities.

At the same time, the Colombia Fintech trade group asked the government to speed up decisions in four areas, Bre-B, open finance, credit and cryptoassets, and warned that the current pace of regulation is not keeping up with the innovation of the more than 365 companies it represents. That position adds nuance to the official message and reflects the tension between consumer protection and industry expectations.