Sitio Web Bécalos

Bécalos is one of Mexico's most relevant educational philanthropy programs. Born in 2006 from an alliance between Fundación Televisa and the Mexican Banking Association (ABM), it operates as a vehicle for civil society, banks, and companies to contribute resources toward scholarships for students and teachers in public schools. By 2015, when we began developing the site, the program had nearly a decade of operation, had awarded over 220,000 scholarships, and received donations from more than 11 million bank customers annually through ATMs.

The ATM channel worked well but limited the program's reach to the in-person banking universe. A clear opportunity existed: open a digital donation channel allowing anyone, from anywhere, to join the program without depending on an ATM.

• Trust, first and foremost.A donation gateway under Fundación Televisa and ABM's umbrella cannot have a single visible error.
• Multiple payment methods, multiple ecosystems.The site had to accept credit and debit cards from the country's leading banks, as well as alternative payment forms.
• Automated tax billing.A donation in Mexico entails tax deductibility: the donor expects to receive their CFDI without additional paperwork.
• Bank-grade security.Handling payment data from thousands of donors requires PCI-DSS compliance, active fraud controls, and a formal recurring penetration testing program.

• Donation gateway with multiple payment methods, enabling one-time and recurring (monthly) donations, optimized for conversion on desktop and mobile.
• Integration with third-party payment processors for credit and debit cards from Mexico's leading banks, with secure token handling.
• Automated tax billing (CFDI) via integration with authorized PAC, generating and sending the receipt within minutes.
• Bank-grade security architecture: PCI-DSS compliance, end-to-end encrypted connections, sensitive data segmentation.
• Ongoing penetration testing program, executed in regular cycles to audit the platform against emerging vulnerabilities.
• Evolutionary maintenance over a decade, keeping the site operational, secure, and current with tax regulations and payment methods.

• Consolidated digital donation channel for Bécalos: the gateway enabled the program to expand beyond the ATM.
• Over a decade of uninterrupted operation (2015 – present), with no public security incidents or critical outages.
• Support for historic growth: during this period, Bécalos grew from ~220,000 scholarships to over 594,838 accumulated scholarships across 19 years, with a record 44,142 scholarships in the 2024-2025 cycle.
• Sustained institutional trust with Fundación Televisa, ABM, and over 30 allied banks and financial institutions.
• Frictionless tax billing for donors: the automated CFDI flow eliminated a classic barrier to donation in Mexico.
• Mature security posture, validated by continuous penetration testing cycles.