Surely we have heard at some point in our lives of the existence of FONACOT, but there is still a great deal of ignorance on the part of employers regarding their obligations in relation to this public institution.
FONACOT (the trust that administered the Fondo de Fomento y Garantía para el Consumo de los Trabajadores) was created 49 years ago (in May 1974) by the Federal Government to meet the financing needs of workers for the acquisition of goods and services.
In those years, banking was not developed, there were no Fintech companies and there was a need to provide financing to a rising working class.
After a generation, in 2006 the trust was transformed into a decentralized public agency, with its own legal personality, called Instituto del Fondo Nacional para el Consumo de los Trabajadores or INFONACOT, which continues to provide access to credit to the country's working population at a reasonable cost.
What does the Law say about FONACOT?
Employers have the obligation to affiliate their workplaces with such institution. This obligation was established in the Federal Labor Law in 2012, but today, more than 10 years later, we still have many work centers that are not even aware of this obligation.
Article 132 of the Federal Labor Law, in its section XXVI bis, establishes the employer's obligation to affiliate the work centers, free of charge for the employers, therefore, as of the hiring of the first employee, the employer has such obligation.
Affiliation is done either in person at a branch office or through its web page(fonacot.gob.mx) and with the registration of each work center, the first employer obligation is completed.
Companies registered with the REPSE and INFONACOT
Companies registered in the Registry of Providers of Specialized Services or Specialized Works(REPSE) have a double mention of this obligation to affiliate their workplaces to INFONACOT, since in the agreement that discloses the general provisions for the registration of companies that provide specialized services or perform specialized works referred to in Article 15 of the Federal Labor Law, published on May 24, 2021 in the Official Gazette of the Federation and amended on February 3, 2021, mentions the requirement for these companies to be affiliated to INFONACOT (Article eight, paragraph l), for such reason, it is indispensable that such companies have covered this obligation in order to belong to the REPSE registry.
Well, once the work center is affiliated, there will be no obligations to comply with as long as no employee goes to INFONACOT to apply for a loan, because if any employee does so and the loan is approved, the employer will receive a notification on the INFONACOT computer platform, with the employee's information, loan number, amount owed and amount to be deducted through payroll to the employee who has received the loan from INFONACOT.
The obligation to deduct from the payroll the credit for the payment of the INFONACOT loan is based on Article 132, Section XXVI of the Federal Labor Law, and this deduction must be made until the loan is paid in full or until the employment relationship is terminated, whichever comes first.
The amount to be deducted from employees will be determined by the amount and term that INFONACOT has agreed with such employees, but may not exceed 10% for employees earning the general minimum wage (Art. 97, section IV, LFT), nor 20% for those earning more than the minimum wage (Art. 110, section VII, LFT).
The payment to INFONACOT of payroll deductions made during the month will be paid the following month using the capture line received through the INFONACOT portal.
To conclude
As a curious fact, if the worker has a bad credit history, it will not be an impediment to receive loans from INFONACOT, but if the employer is the one with a bad credit history in the financial information entities (credit bureau), INFONACOT will not grant loans to its employees.
I hope this information will help you comply with these employer obligations.
See you next time!
