Four years ago, the Brazilian Central Bank introduced an instant payment scheme called Pix. Currently, 71.5 million individuals who, prior to Pix’s launch, had not used any form of electronic credit transfers, had already used Pix. Among the key success factors: Strong communication strategy, no fees for individuals initiating a Pix account, opening-up the ecosystem to any PSP and strong user-centred approach with as many use-cases as possible.
To learn more about the latest updates, the EPC interviewed Carlos Eduardo Brandt of the Brazilian Central Bank.
At its launch in November 2020, Pix already had multiple use cases, such as transfers between people, between companies, purchases at the point of sale and in e-commerce, electronic billing, and payment and tax collection.
After its launch, new functionalities were developed, such as payment scheduling, the possibility of initiating payments through third-party providers (payment initiator service providers or PISP) and the withdrawal of cash from merchants and ATMs.
„We are currently developing a new solution for recurring payments, allowing periodic payments to be easily made with payee inputs and with a single authorisation from the payer. In addition, we are carefully looking at the buy now pay later (BNPL) initiatives of some payment service providers (PSPs) and will discuss the possibility of having a standardized BNPL product for Pix at some point. We are also exploring new forms of initiation (near field communication or NFC payments in particular).” said Carlos Eduardo Brandt.
The adoption rate and usageness
With all these features, today (data from March 2024) Pix is used by around 153 million Brazilians (around seventy-five percent of the population) and 15 million companies.
In 2023, there were 42 billion transactions (seventy-five percent growth compared to 2022), with a turnover of 17.2 trillion Brazilian reals (around 3.5 trillion US dollars). By December 2022, 71.5 million individuals who, prior to Pix’s launch, had not used any form of electronic credit transfers, had already used Pix.
„We currently have 816 PSPs – including banks of all sizes, non-banks, fintechs, credit unions – and PISPs offering Pix in Brazil.” Brandt added.
More statistics can be found here.
Follow the link to see the lessons that Central bank of Brazil have learned since the launch of Pix and the future plans: Pix: the latest updates on Brazil’s leading instant payment scheme
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
