A new almost instant payment system is coming to Brazil in response to cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology. The new system known as PIX, is a creation of the country’s Central Bank and is being promoted as a 24/7 system that can deliver results within 10 seconds. The country’s top bank director Joao Manoel Pinho de Mello expects the transactions to be executed much faster though. He expects transactions to be executed within 2 seconds on this payment system
Brazil’s instant payment system was developed by the country’s top bank as a response to the challenge presented by crypto technology. The top bank’s president Campos Neto had this to say about the new institutional initiative;
“This is one of the most important projects that we have this year. The world demands a payment instrument that is cheap, fast, transparent and secure,” he went to say “If we think in terms of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, they are born out of these needs, these characteristics. And Pix is our answer to these systems,”
The bank is not taking a liberal approach to their initiative like crypto and technology is. There payment system has been made a must have for all major banks as well as other financial and payment processing institutions with over 500,000 accounts. Just over 30 outfits managing over 90 percent of all active accounts in the country will participate in the initiative. These outfits will include Brazil’s five major banks Bradesco, Itaú, Banco do Brasil, Caixa Econômica Federal, and Santander, and the digital banks Inter, Original and Nubank.
President Campos also made it clear that the Pix platform would be the bank’s top priority this year. According to him, the platform will be instrumental in eliminating the need for individuals to always have physical currencies which leads to a high cost for the society. It was also revealed that the bank had inked a deal with Brazil’s Treasury Secretariat, which would allow Brazilians to remit federal taxes through the PIX platform starting this November. The Brazilian government is also set to provide various payments like income tax refunds, social benefits, and grants via the platform.
