Colombia seeks to copy Brazilian Central Bank’s instant payment model

The president of Brazil’s Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, will meet with the manager of Colombia’s central bank, Leonardo Villar, so that the Andean country can “copy” Pix, the Brazilian instant payment model.

The statement was given at the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Febraban) event on Thursday.

“I have spoken with the president of Colombia’s central bank, who wants to do exactly like Pix,” said Campos Neto, who sees room to internationalize the Brazilian payments system.

“I think we can start internationalizing Pix in Latin America. Many Brazilian banks have branches in Latin America,” he said.

Pix, launched by Brazil’s central bank in 2020, has seen rapid adoption by Brazilians. As of July 31, 2022, Brazil registered more than 478 million keys. The keys are identifiers for each user, and each user can have up to three keys.

In Colombia, the fintech Minka and ACH Colombia have created the Transfiya system, with the proposal of being a 24/7 real-time payment method, like Pix.

In the region, Peru’s Banco del Credito launched an instant payments arm, Yape, in 2016. Also from a private initiative, Peru’s PLIN emerged in 2020 as a real-time payments proposition.

The Mexican Central Bank attempted to implement a similar payment system, CoDi. And in Argentina, Transferencias 3.0 is the interoperability system for instant debit payments. However, none of them have the mass adoption that Pix had.

“I could never do Pix in Brazil if the banks didn’t collaborate,” Campos Neto said. “The banks collaborated because it’s a win-win model; it generates financial inclusion and less physical money circulation.”

With information from Bloomberg