The instant payments system mandated by Brazil’s central bank was officially launched in November 16, with 734 institutions participating. Since then, some 134 million user accounts have been registered. What’s more – usage is surging. “The surprise was the volume of transactions, which are between BRL 5 billion and BRL 6 billion (USD $930 million – USD $1.12 billion) on a daily average,” Carolina Sansão, innovation and technology manager at Febraban. The functionality of Pix has allowed banks to embrace new business models. Banco do Brasil (BB) customers, for example, can use WhatsApp to make payments through the Pix system. By adding BB’s personal assistant as a contact, customers can interact with the bank and make requests. The virtual assistant reads QR codes for Pix payments and can initiate Pix transactions with voice commands in WhatsApp. Compared to the previous, costly, option for electronic transfers known as DOC TED, the fact that Pix is real-time, easy-to-use and free makes it highly attractive for customers and bring competiveness to the market. Customers have embraced it. In just the first week of operations – November 16 to 22 – Pix registered 12.2 million transactions, worth BRL 9.3 billion. In its first month of operation, 90 million Pix transactions worth BRL 83.4 billion were carried out, according to data from the Central Bank. Since then, daily transactions have increased.

https://iupana.com/2021/02/01/pix-opportunity-and-competition/?lang=en