On September 30, 2026, Chile's Financial Market Commission (CMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched ATENA, the Spanish acronym for Technological Environment for Experimentation and New Applications. It is where institutions will test integrations and developments before the Open Finance System (SFA) goes live in July 2027.
What was launched
ATENA's first component is the Participant Directory. It lets institutions test three things the whole system rests on:
- the identification of each participating institution;
- the digital credentials it uses to present itself to the others;
- the trust relationships between institutions, which underpin the SFA's interoperability and security.
The CMF invited banks, fintechs, technology companies and industry associations to use ATENA to test components, integrations and business models. Regulators from Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador and Bolivia attended the launch.
The IDB co-financed the development under APIBox, a regional digital public good initiative. In the words of CMF chair Catherine Tornel, the sandbox is meant to be a permanent space for learning and collaboration, not just for testing.
Why it matters
The SFA was created by the Fintech Law (Law 21,521, 2023) and is regulated by NCG 514, from July 2024. NCG 569, from June 2026, completed the technical rules with Technical Annex No. 3 and set the start for July 2027, with a phased rollout.
The rules already called for a testing environment before production and a 60-day pilot for the APIs. ATENA is that path becoming real. It starts with the directory because, without identity and trust between the parties, no API can talk to another: SFA authentication uses mTLS and x509 certificates, and everything goes through the directory run by the CMF.
In practice, the clock is running. Anyone who waits for the go-live date to run a first integration test will find the problems too late.
The timeline to 2030
- Second half of 2026: Annex No. 4, with cost limits and charges between institutions (still expected).
- July 2027: the SFA enters into force.
- December 2027: banks and card issuers open the APIs for terms, conditions and service channels.
- April 2028: customer data, positions and transactions of individuals.
- July 2028: business customer data and single payment initiation for individuals.
- January 2029: payment initiation for businesses with multiple mandates, and recurring payments.
- March 2029 to January 2030: insurers, fund managers and the other article 18 institutions, 20 to 30 months after the start.
What changes for each institution
Banks and card issuers. They go first. ATENA is the chance to validate the directory integration and the certificate flow before December 2027, when the first APIs must be live. The 60-day pilot leaves little room: what is not tested now becomes a deadline risk later.
Fintechs that will use data or initiate payments. Anyone who wants to act as an information-based service provider or a payment initiator must register with the CMF. Testing early in ATENA helps them reach registration with the integration ready and validate the business model against the real consent flow, not a paper design.
Insurers, fund managers and credit unions. Their obligation arrives between 2029 and 2030, but the directory and credentials are the same for everyone. Using ATENA now means learning from the first movers without deadline pressure.
Institutions with fewer than 100,000 customers. They can join in a simplified way, with only the service channels API. It is worth confirming in the sandbox that this really is the cheapest path for them.
What to do now
- Define the institution's role in the SFA: who provides information, who holds payment accounts, who will use data or initiate payments.
- Request access to ATENA and test identification and credentials in the Participant Directory.
- Review the certificate and mTLS infrastructure with the security team, before the business APIs.
- Build the plan to December 2027 backwards, counting the 60-day pilot.
- Follow Annex No. 4, which sets costs and charges between institutions and directly affects the business case.
The regional view
ATENA is not only a Chilean project. It was built within a regional IDB initiative, and the presence of regulators from Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador and Bolivia at the launch suggests the model may become a reference for countries still designing their own Open Finance. For institutions operating in more than one country, the directory, credential and trust standard tested in Chile is likely to reappear.
In Catalis, ATENA already appears in Chile's obligations as the step "Go through the sandbox before production", with the timeline above and an alert when the CMF publishes Annex No. 4.
Source: CMF press release of 09/30/2026.