ECB Explores a TARGET Instant Payment Settlement Link With Brazil’s Pix

The European Central Bank is looking at a possible connection between TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) and Brazil’s Pix, according to Reuters. If the project moves forward, it would be the first cross-border expansion of Pix, which already dominates payments in Brazil and is being treated as a serious candidate for international interoperability.

1. The ECB said it is exploring an interlinking between its TIPS platform and the Central Bank of Brazil’s Pix platform after Reuters asked about claims from unnamed sources that the two central banks are considering a link between their instant payment systems. The Central Bank of Brazil declined to comment, Reuters reported.
2. Technical teams from both central banks are assessing whether the connection is feasible, and a pilot project could be launched in 2028, according to the report. That timeline matters: this is not a live corridor, but it is also no longer just a theory sitting in a policy paper.
3. In August, Brazil’s central bank sounded more certain than before that Pix will be linked to similar instant payment systems in other countries. In an August report, it said such connections could lower costs, accelerate transactions, broaden access and improve the transparency of cross-border payments. In a 2023 report, it had only said Pix “may in the future” be integrated with other countries’ instant payment systems.
4. Pix has grown fast enough to make the conversation matter for PSPs, banks and acquirers watching Brazil. One PYMNTS Intelligence report said Pix reached 70% of Brazil’s population, or more than 150 million users, since launching in 2020, and now processes more transactions than Visa and Mastercard combined.
5. Brazil has already extended Pix to Argentina so that Brazilians living there can make payments and transfers across borders. That is a narrow use case, but it shows the direction of travel: Pix is being built not just as a domestic rail, but as infrastructure that can spill over into cross-border flows.

For high-risk operators and their payment providers, the practical point is simple: when a domestic instant payment scheme with Pix’s scale starts talking to TIPS, the conversation shifts from local acceptance to corridor access, settlement design and control over cross-border flows.