Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September
reuters.com
reuters.com
Obviously credit cards give you credit, if that's what you want/need, maybe a postponement until your monthly statement is closed, or chargebacks and maybe insurance, but CCs should be an exception, not the norm they are now, with a bunch of embedded costs we all pay for, one way or another.
0: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ec...
In practice, people have started to accept it in Portugal, Argentina, Uruguai and some other places where people tend to have accounts both in their countries of residence and Brazil.
Also, Verifone PoS in the US will also accept Pix as well.
What they have there is a Brazilian person receiving payments from another Brazilian person, only through Brazilian accounts, all happening remotely in Brazil(at least for now)
It's the same thing as buying stuff from China with PIX, but the gateway is more hidden from the Portuguese accounts.
Even then, everywhere you go, unless they're really small or old places that still don't accept anything other than cash, you can pay with MBWAY, through a QR code or NFC. All POS terminals support that nowadays. You can even add an email address and VAT number and newer terminals automatically skip printing the customer receipt, send it to your email and give the VAT number to the merchant (not entirely sure how that last one works, but it's there).
https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...
Besides the branding (which tbh it's a big deal), also made guidelines requirements on how the banks needed to implement. Exactly so they couldn't hide or made it worse to use.
That's because you (and everyone else in Switzerland, even those paying cash) is eating a 2-3% merchant fee markup. In the civilised world like the EU, where credit card interchange fees are capped of 0.3%, those cashback benefits (which is, again, your money you've just paid) don't exist.
> worldwide acceptance
For now, at a huge economy-wide cost. That skimmed 2-3% is what Trump is trying to protect.
> peace of mind
That's also country-dependent. In many countries, credit card transactions have no additional protections and chargebacks aren't the magic bullet they are in some.
> more convenient, safer, faster.
Pix is more convenient, safer (much, much safer and lower risk of fraud), and faster than credit cards. Cheaper too.
And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway; if anything businesses should charge surcharges for accepting cash, not the other way around, and given the social constraint of no surcharges, cashback is a fair mechanism to reward efficient payment methods.
Only since Wednesday of this week due to COMCO action, so no-one knows if cashback will persist, but it will be a lot less than .33%.
> And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway;
In the EU, it's .5% for cash vs .3% for cards, but the situation falls back into favour for cash once fraud is accounted for.
That Visa fee table is dated July 2023?
Merchants have a psychological (and in some countries, legal) barrier to charging more for cash than other payment methods, even though it's the least efficient. Given this, cash-back is the best way to share the efficiency gains with the end user. Maybe if Pix or Twint or debit cards or what-have-you are so efficient, they should also give consumers cashback.
Huh, not sure I agree with that (the uniform pricing thing). I mean, one should believe that, but it doesn't appear to be true. For example, recently I saw a tablet for 208 euro (converted from GBP) on amazon.co.uk, approx 220 euro from amazon.de and 360 euro from amazon.ie, for the same item.
I was really surprised because I figured electronics would be pretty similarly priced across the EU/UK, but apparently not.
I've seen merchants giving a discount for payment with Pix. And a few stores refuse credit cards and only accept debit and Pix (and cash?).
Also, isn't the main competitor to CC the debit card? And now in some countries instant payments? Is debit that rare in the US?
Although to be honest I'm not 100% sure if it isn't some tax evasion thing.
You are right about convenience, but here, 1% fee makes a huge difference to make both ends meet.
You can give alms with pix, to show how widespread pix is.
And the merchant gets the money after a long time. It is possible to advance the payment but the rates are much higher (10%+).
So, i dont think we can even think of credit cards as instant payment. And it has mich higher costs that, in the end, go back to the consumers.
BLIK has one ugly caveat, though: it has no chargeback procedure.
[1] Year 2024.
[2] https://www.blik.com/en/about-us#id-15ce9a61-2597-11f0-8657-...
[1] Polski Standard Płatności S.A. - Polish banks' joint venture, which created and operates BLIK.
In 2021, Brazil enacted Law No. 14.063, which governs the digitalization of public services. Its Article 16 is clear:
“Information and communication systems developed exclusively by the public administration shall be governed by open-source licenses, allowing their unrestricted use, copying, modification, and distribution by all public agencies and entities.”
In short, software developed solely by the public sector—funded with taxpayer money and intended to serve the public interest—must be made available under an open-source license.
Pix is exposed to a legal instrument called 'Mandado de Segurança'.
I have written about it:
https://d1gesto.blogspot.com/2025/06/brazils-pix-system-face...
[0] https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servic...
MInd you, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) does have administrative autonomy. But under Brazilian law, it still counts as part of the public administration when it comes to digital systems developed using public funds.
So the legal issue isn’t about how “independent” the BCB is — it's about the origin of the software and who paid for its development. If Pix was created exclusively by a government entity, Law 14.063/2021, Article 16 requires it to be released under an open-source license. That’s the core of my point — a legal compliance issue, not a technical or governance judgment.
As for your broader question: yes, open-sourcing the platform wouldn’t necessarily mean other entities could plug into Pix directly. Participation in the network still depends on BCB regulations, trust, compliance layers, and access controls. Open code is transparency, not necessarily interoperability.
But in a system as critical as Pix, open code would at least allow independent auditing, public scrutiny, and possibly innovation through forks or parallel implementations — even if those don’t run on the live network.
So I agree — it’s a multi-layered governance issue. But transparency of publicly funded code is a foundational first step. That’s what the law mandates — and what hasn’t yet been fulfilled.
It wasn't a BCB breach. The issue was with an integrator. Like a client API built on top of it that provided banking features to fintech startups
So no, it wasn't a breach to BCB, neither it was caused by system insecurity, but rather, human error in a downstream implementation.
I mean, they blocked WhatsApp (95+% usage) before so who knows, but it seems unlikely it will actually affect the average person.
Edited
Yeah, the government has a lot of software it still has to publish.
The EU Digital Wallet is open source. But this is not actually a wallet, but just an identity application. Then there are is Digital Euro and its wallets for which European Central Bank is willing to dump few billions of euros on closed source consultancyware.
Beyond that, Pix is so popular that I doubt a challenge would hold up in court. If it went to the STF, there's no way they wouldn't give Pix a carve out.
I'm as big a fan of open source as anyone else, but can we audit any other payment systems anywhere? Is that a reasonable expectation to have for payment systems?
I'm not familiar with Pix or UPI, so out of curiosity, how are they better than Alipay/WeChat Pay (which I am familiar with)?
To spell it out, the merchant pays fees to the payment processor and carries risk (chargebacks, etc) and these costs are included (“embedded”) in the purchase price of whatever you’re buying.
Moving to instant pay moves these risks to the purchaser, which is probably not ideal for the merchant because it forces purchasers to be more careful with their spending. New merchants in particular would have to work harder to establish their reputation. Larger merchants would probably start offering credit again.
Where “insta pay” shines is for merchants with less credit worthy customers, because it allows them to operate online and in an electronic world. Currently in the U.S. that job is done with cash, but perhaps very soon with privately issued stablecoins. I guess the big question is whether the U.S. government should issue a stablecoin or similar electronic cash-like thing.
You just scan a QR code and pay.
Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have. Or to think you are making “points” by spending more money
>You just scan a QR code and pay.
Tap to pay (ie. NFC) with credit cards is as convenient and arguably more convenient than a QR code solution. At the very least you don't have to worry about aiming at the QR code and waiting for it to scan/focus, which is especially important if you're using it on transit systems.
What means that if you have a very normal behavior, yes, it's more convenient. If you deviate from the norm in any way, it's an unreliable piece of shit that will leave you hanging without money the moment you need it most.
And as deviant people drop out of that system, the bar for deviance gets lower and lower.
1. "Tap to pay" refers to a technology, specifically NFC communications. Anyone can use it, not just "credit card processors". For instance, many transit agencies also use NFC for their passes/tickets, and those obviously aren't being intermediated by "credit card processors".
2. Any sort of centralized system will be susceptible to "all the usual bullshit credit card processors impose". At least with credit card companies there's theoretically a degree of independence from the government. A government run payments system, staffed by government appointed cronies would be even more susceptible to government pressure to block certain groups.
Once this is widespread, then the only reasons to use credit will be cashback/points or paying in credit.
[1] https://www.gov.br/secom/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2025/02/pix...
If you have some money you can easily get a card with high cashback, as well, in the 1%+ territory depending on if you want big banks or not, and pay no fees.
But yeah I get the point. It was similar in Turkey, but still wasn’t that valuable to save 1% unless you are really trying to squeeze hard
But then they offered me the laptop with enough discount that was a no brainer. I obviously calculated the difference between 1x, 12x with the hidden interest - cashback and Pix.
So 3 days lost trying to buy the thing, then instant approval and next day delivery when I paid with Pix.
When I bought the NSW2 on pre sale, it was better to use installments, get some cashback, etc.
It's more worth to buy things with Pix, and use things like Inter/Meliuz to use 10%~ cashback on stores...
(of course, if you don't want to use insurance or installments).
Btw, my father produce furniture and industrial products, and we always make the price clear to the customer, including what the price would be depending on the payment method. It might not be ideal, but… we prefer to give the transparency to the clients. Because of this, I do say 90% of the clients these days pay only with Pix. A few years ago it was all CC or debit cards.
This is absolutely not why millions of people use credit cards. To repeat: Immediately handing cash to a merchant carries risk for the purchaser. What if the product is defective, or the order never filled, etc?
The risk is buying from shady merchants and platforms that don't care about the legal system, or can delay the resolution of the dispute.
For instance buying from China on AliExpress, I will obviously not use Pix (through AliPay), but my credit card.
If it's in-person you bought something, technically you can only return up to 30 days for non durable goods, and 90 days for durable goods, if there's some problems with the product, or a reason etc.
And in person, if someone manages to copy it and fraud me, I can also get it resolved and have the credit card company pay me back.
Do these instant payment system offer similar protections?
Also some banks are offering insurance on trial basis already.
But yeah, I prefer CC on international platforms, or if the cashback is higher than the discount they offer via Pix (5% to 20%).
Lenovo offered me 20% on a Laptop recently through Pix.
With the discount I paid a bit more on broader support, keep your disks, liquid damage protection.
Being more careful with purchases is a net benefit to society in general.
Brazilians also generally don't like to walk with cash in their pockets. Only politicians usually do it, but in their underpants.
The pros is that cash is analog, no battery, internet connection or digital system needed to process it.
Not that Pix isn't a risk, being forced to do bank transactions at gunpoint is a thing now, but anyway.
You still can buy airline tickets with cash. Not online though.
As SEPA in the EU, and Faster Payments in UK don't seem to fit that.
Unless you have other examples outside of the USA, or a different opinion on SEPA?
Why? Finland is in SEPA.
It's for bank transfers between accounts, which could be in the same country, or not. If you do a bank transfer of e.g. a 3-digit sum, and it arrives the same day, that's SEPA. If it's in a few seconds, that's SEPA Instant (1).
The grandparent post about "these capabilities" - specifically in comparison to the US FedNow -seems to cover more than just point-of-sale, right? Although that is mentioned in the SEPA Instant use cases.
1) https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...
The thing about PIX most people don't get, including Europeans in this thread, is it integrates into whatever is your bank, so you can use your bank's cashing account to pay, no external app or account necessary.
I honestly think, at this point, they should just drop the bomb; take their currency to the blockchain (stablecoin) and make the wallets fully connectable to the crypto ecosystem. China doesn't seem keen to take a more open role to capital markets, so there is a void there.
We will have strong national currencies supported by these payment systems, destroying Visa and Mastercard and hurting PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. These systems have a lot more potential than most people imagine (e.g.: micro lending , even for illiterate people).
We will have "gangster money", a.k.a. crypto currencies, to sustain illegal activities. There is no other use case for crypto, only this.
And we will probably have "economic blocs" money (e.g.: whatever thing the BRICS come up with).
In this scenario I'd hope for a big change in the international payments system.
The dollar will not have one rival, will have many. I hope it dies by a thousand cuts.
The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms, but in reality, it’s the actual improvement in life driven significantly by the adoption of UPI that’s played the biggest role.
Examples? The only discussion of "religious terms" around Indian coverage by western media is about how the ruling party BJP panders to "Hindu nationalism", which can be simultaneously true alongside competent leadership.
I'm sorry but last few months have done nothing if not demonstrate the need for crypto currency, aka digital cash. It may not be ready, but it is likely the only path forward. In the meantime Monero is relatively stable, sufficiently anonymous, and has comparatively low transaction fees.
The monopoly of existing payment processors cannot continue. They have a stranglehold on fees and issue cards that promote economically harmful activities. They and contactless payment processors sell your data. And now they control what you can and can't purchase.
Enter national digital currencies such as as the proposed CBDC. Fear-mongering sites making such outlandish claims [1]. So I do a bit of research, and find [2]... wait, what?
"In addition, it [full anonymity] would make it virtually impossible to limit the use of the digital euro as a form of investment – a limitation that is essential from a financial stability perspective."
Suddenly I trust [3] so much less. The technical controls required to implement inventory limits would just as easily enable expiration dates and automatic devaluation, or whatever overreach governments deem necessary down their slippery slope.
1. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a...
2. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a...
3. https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-f...
Where does Pix fall in this spectrum?
Don't let the bad shit (and, holy shit, there is a lot) distract from the potential.
You can sign documents with Pix! ClickSign and others support it. You can just send 1 cent, and this can be one of the possibilities to sign documents!
https://ajuda.clicksign.com/article/558-assinando-um-documen...
It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, with the news of the dependence on Azure and their aims to decouple from the US.
It’s a nice apt story for what’s being going on this last week.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc49...
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
The UX of SEPA is lacking in comparison to other modern payment systems for sure. I'm confident though, that it will improve soon. Wero [1] seems like a decent start and appears to be gaining traction lately. It's basically a layer on top of SEPA Instant payment with extra features and a decent app based UI/UX.
Banking apps can also generate a QR code for receiving payments.
They are not quite as seamless as tap-to-pay, but they work with pretty much every bank in the Austria, which is neat.
We pay 2.50 EUR for a SEPA transfer, it's ridiculously expensive.
We need local integrations for every market to cut costs.
Usually SEPA payments are completely free for consumers. And I believe there’s a EU-mandated fee cap which is much less than 2.50 €. But if you have a business account, things are different.
We clearly need to look into other banks.
- sending money (P2P, P2B, B2B) often requires manually entering a IBAN in your banking app/website (_except in some countries_, and some systems on top of it can also reduce the friction) which is okay for many P2P use cases but not good for physical shop checkout P2B use case or ad hoc bill sharing use case in P2P (also compared to some other solutions this often comes with less consumer protections)
- doesn't interface (well) with the card payment/payment terminal ecosystem (but technically can and you do find it in some edge cases)
- fast (in seconds) payment cost extra and price is bank/country dependent (through in some countries it's free or consistently "cheap" e.g. a fixed 15ct(€) independent of amount and recipient)
but this is likely too change, some countries have already put up standards for more convenient P2P (and P2B??) payment methods and they seem to be in the process of being adapted EU wide (but not necessary UK and other non EU SEPA members)
in addition there are standardized interfaces for 3rd parties companies to link up with SEPA and/or you bank account which do technically allow companies to innovate on improvements. Practically this often runs into issues, 1) from a consumer POV in many (not all) EU countries the state of card payment is just fine and convenient features like easy bill sharing many people either don't need or don't know what they miss out on. 2) many issues are on the (physical) shop side, but you need to provide things users can use and having multiple systems in parallel is often not very practical, 3) at the same time without shops allowing new systems customer don't have any reason to adapt such new systems
anyway all of this likely will improve quite a bit relatively soon
how can you discriminate against a duopoly ;)
> It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space,
(you seem to be drifting into the server center topic but I will take "this space" as payment processing)
It's complicated, EU has many payment standards which 1) are required between banks, and 2) theoretically allow integration with new payment processing methods needing only the end-users agreement not the banks. So you can relatively easily send money between people (and to company accounts, too) without touching visa/mastercard at all (how easy that "relative part" does still vary a lot tho. (Also if you are willing to pay a fixed up price (commonly free or 15ct) also fast, like in seconds).
At the same time when it comes to 1) banking cards, 2) payment terminals, pretty much everything is build on Mastercard/Visa (where I live mostly Visa). Like there is no competition when it comes to the secure chips this systems use. (But then both PayPall and pretty much all of China have kinda shown you don't really need them as long as you have internet, which payment terminal often need to for any non very small payment amounts). Also because people are so used to a well working reasonable secure card payment system many tries to push for app based alternatives kinda fail, sure due to their dominant position in online shopping Paypal is still a thing, but also commonly relegate to at most one of multiple options in online shopping. Just to be clear the exact dynamics differ _vastly_ between country in the EU.
Any I really don't like the generic pay in rates functionality, it's a trap which really can fuck up peoples life (similar to using the dipso all the time/not getting out of it, or large credit boundary or however it's called for credit cards; to be honest dispo tends to be worse tho).
The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.
> While the system is not named directly, a document from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) says that “Brazil also appears to engage in a number of unfair practices with respect to electronic payment services, including but not limited to advantaging its government-developed electronic payment services.”
I'd be surprised if there aren't big tech/credit card companies lobbying behind this.
- Igor Luna, Legal Consultant of the Brazilian Digital Economy Chamber
- Nuno Lopes Alves, General Director of Visa
- Gustavo Lage Noman, Vice President of Government Affairs at Visa
- Márcia Miya, Government Affairs Manager at Apple
- Gustavo Dias, Head of Legal and Institutional Relations Latin America
- Yana Dumaresq, Director of Public Policy at Meta
- Daniel Arbix, Legal Director at Google
Igor Luna were doing heavy lobby against social network regulation that happened.
I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA.
Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.
If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans)
It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card))
Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees
Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot
So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments
It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing.
There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance.
This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.
PS: I don't think anyone is illegal, but the system push them out.
Meanwhile to the Brazilian people, congratulations & enjoy being world leaders in payments!
There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay...
No surprise.
1. Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal.
2. If Apple were to implement it they wouldn't be able to get away with the huge margins they charge.
Apple has 9% market share in Brazil. This is not irrelevant. It’s not a luxury thing for millionaires, but rather a status symbol for the middle class.
There’s this whole market of iPhone leasing plans where you get a new phone whenever Apple releases a new one, banks offering 21x installment payment plans to purchase iPhones, and a vibrant secondhand and refurbished market.
This 9% segment of the population can’t be ignored, specially considering the income inequality in the Brazilian society. They might not have a high credit card limit or due to lack of financial literacy, they want to avoid using credit cards, so they might prefer to use debit and PIX for daily transactions.
I don't have statistics readily available, but you can search for CADE's (Brazilian fair trade regulator) inquiry 08700.002893/2025-17 on Apple's refusal to support Pix on Apple Pay and comb through the documents.
Ave Brasil