The Brazilian Central Bank has announced that it is studying to link the Pix electronic payment system to counterparts of foreign institutions, and is already accepted in some shops in Portugal and other countries.
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11/08/2026
by
Lusa
As information is in the second edition of the Pix Management Report, released on Monday, which presents the main advances of the platform between 2023 and 2025, the results achieved by the payment system and the prospects for the coming years.
According to the Brazilian Central Bank, cross-border transaction models are already making possible the use of Pix by Brazilians in other countries, as well as the use of the platform in Brazil by non-residents based on applications from foreign institutions.
These interconnections, according to the Brazilian monetary authority, “would allow international remittances and purchase transactions to be carried out with the availability of resources in local currency in a few seconds”.
‘The interconnection of instant payment systems has the potential to reduce tariffs, increase speed, increase access and improve transparency of cross-border transactions’, the report reports.
Although it is not yet possible to make a Pix for foreign bank accounts outside Brazil, the instant payment system is accepted in some shops in Portugal (Lisbon), Argentina (Buenos Aires) and the United States (Miami and Orlando) for example.
The integration of Pix into the Brazilian credit market, with the possibility of using future flows of the system as collateral in credit operations is another measure still under study, according to the Central Bank of the country.
According to the report, the Pix – launched five years ago – exceeded the initial phase of expansion and began to require more stringent measures for users, following the growth of the use and diversification of operations.
Last year, the Brazilian Central Bank accounted for nearly 80 billion transactions via Pix, moving more than 35 billion reais (5.94 billion euros).
The growth of the system also led the country's monetary institution to strengthen communication with users, with guidance on fraud prevention and scams and information on how to conduct suspicious operations.
Despite the reinforcement of measures, the report points out that the central bank recognises that the expansion of the Pix has also expanded its use for illicit practices and coups, making security one of the main challenges of the new phase of the system.
Thus, the Brazilian monetary agency reported that it intends to develop an indicator of “probability of fraud” in Pix transactions.
This indicator, to be centrally calculated by the Central Bank of the country in real time for all transactions, ‘will be constructed on the basis of a ‘machine learning’ model and should be made available to participating institutions to feed their anti-fraud systems’.
The evolution of Pix, according to the report, also involves measures related to its responsible use and, therefore, the monetary institution assesses measures against ‘misuse of the field of description of transactions’.
“This field has been used, in some situations, for purposes other than the original purpose, as a vehicle for offensive, intimidating or threatening messages, often associated with derisory value transfers,” the Brazilian Central Bank reported.
Recently, Pix was targeted by the United States, which decided to apply a 25% tariff on some Brazilian products, claiming, among other arguments, that the payment system is harmful to US companies operating in the sector.