- PIX project started in 2016, public launch in 2020
- It was not "launched" by any President; the Brazilian Central Bank is an independent authority, with it own mandate, not a branch of the executive power
- PIX was co-developed with institutions of the financial sector
- It's a protocol that participants must implement, not an app. The specification is even on GitHub. I don't know what you mean by "its code is nowhere to be found".
- The Brazilian Central Bank is acknowledged as a benchmark, rather than "proverbially incompetent public work force"