BC is working on PIX international, credit guarantees, and anti-scam rules

Brazil’s central bank says PIX is still getting new layers, and two of the planned ones matter beyond retail payments: PIX international and PIX in guarantee. For PSPs and acquiring teams, that means the rail is moving from fast domestic transfers into cross-border use cases and credit-related workflows.

1. The Banco Central do Brasil said it is discussing future features including hybrid collection, using PIX to settle duplicatas, the so-called split tributário linked to tax reform, plus PIX international and PIX em garantia (PIX in guarantee).
2. The institution also said it is working on the improper use of the transaction description field, where users have been sending messages through the payment tool, including offensive, intimidating, or threatening content tied to low-value transfers. The central bank said it started a working group this year within the Fórum PIX, with payment-system associations participating, and will assess regulatory measures if needed.
3. Another item on the table is the so-called alerta de golpe (scam alert) for PIX transfers. The BC said some institutions already use warnings to flag possible fraud at transaction initiation, and it is now discussing with the market how to standardize that experience, potentially by making minimum criteria and delivery rules mandatory.
4. The central bank also reminded the market that PIX has kept evolving in recent years: PIX cobrança, PIX saque, PIX agendado, and PIX por aproximação have already been added. In practice, that is how a domestic instant-payment rail starts absorbing more of the old card, boleto, and cash-use cases one by one.
5. In 2025, PIX registered R$ 35,36 trilhões in transfers, a new record. That was up 33,6% from 2024, when transferred value totaled R$ 26,46 trilhões.

For high-risk PSPs, the useful signal is not the record volume by itself. It is that Brazil’s instant-payment rail is still being extended into settlement, dispute-adjacent messaging, fraud signaling, and potentially cross-border flows — the parts that tend to matter when a payment method stops being just a payment method.