MEXICO CITY, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A senior member of Mexico’s ruling party on Friday urged the lower house of Congress to suspend debate until next year on a financial bill that has alarmed the central bank, with lawmakers set to make a decision early next week. Mexico’s Senate on Wednesday passed the draft law that would make the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) buy up foreign cash that cannot be returned to its country of origin by commercial banks. The Senate’s approval of the law, which was pitched by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), met with strong pushback from the central bank due to the apparent risks it harbors. ADVERTISEMENT Advocates of the law say it will help poor migrant families disadvantaged by the financial system to unload their cash. But critics say it could end up forcing Banxico to absorb money from drug gangs and make it a target of international authorities. During a virtual hearing with the lower house finance committee on Friday evening, Central Bank Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon urged lawmakers to overhaul the bill, cautioning that it could “open the door” to significant risks. The group is due to resume deliberations on the initiative on Monday at a meeting with senior banking executives. Patricia Terrazas, an opposition lawmaker who chairs the finance committee, said congressional leaders would determine when the bill would go to a vote, given that only two days remain before Congress enters winter recess on Dec. 15. ADVERTISEMENT Earlier, congressman Alfonso Ramirez Cuellar, a former head of the lower house budget committee and onetime party chairman of MORENA, said the bill was too important to be rushed. To that end, Ramirez proposed that debate on the bill be postponed until Congress reconvenes in February, saying lawmakers “must safeguard the Bank of Mexico’s faculties and avoid the risk of contaminating the foreign exchange system.” Several MORENA lawmakers at the hearing insisted the bill did not undermine the central bank or present a money laundering risk, though one suggested they take more time to review it. (Reporting by Dave Graham, Daina Beth Solomon and Stefanie Eschenbacher; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Sam Holmes)