Brazil’s instant-payments system Pix is celebrating its fifth anniversary on Sunday, and a new report from Movimento Brasil Competitivo (MBC) highlights the scale of its impact. Since its launch on November 16, 2020, Pix has generated an estimated R$117 billion in direct savings for consumers and businesses.
The MBC study credits Pix’s broad adoption and near-zero transfer fees for replacing older, costlier payment methods such as TED, DOC and boleto. That shift, the report says, has translated into substantial, measurable savings across the economy.
Savings have grown rapidly. Annual avoided costs rose 177.3% between 2021 and 2024, jumping from R$11.9 billion to R$33 billion. This year, MBC reports, cumulative savings have already reached R$38.3 billion through September — putting 2025 on track to approach the system’s earlier forecast for 2030. The study notes that prior projections expected annual savings of about R$40.1 billion by 2030.
“MBC’s data show the speed with which Pix consolidated itself as one of the main policies for modernizing and cutting costs in Brazil’s financial system,”
Analysts point to three upcoming features as key to further gains: Pix Automático, Pix Parcelado and Pix Internacional. The MBC says these additions could expand Pix’s role into recurring payments, credit operations and cross-border transfers, and may displace more expensive legacy systems. “These functionalities tend to generate new waves of capture, replacing traditional, more costly systems,” the study adds.
Even small per-transaction savings scale up. MBC estimates that each Pix transaction reduces the financial system’s cost by roughly R$0.60. Multiplied across billions of yearly operations, that modest unit saving becomes a powerful driver of aggregate impact. “The success of Pix as a payment method is visible both in rising usage and in lower costs generated,” the study concludes.
The technology’s popularity is reflected in consumer behavior. A separate survey cited by the report — conducted by Google — indicates Pix was used by 93% of Brazilians and represented nearly half (47%) of payment transactions in 2024. More than half of respondents (53.4%) said they would consider abandoning cash altogether by 2030.
The Central Bank has tracked the shift, too. In a report published last year, the authority found that 31.7% of Brazilians still use cash with some frequency — a share that fell 12.5% compared with a prior survey in 2021.
Source: UOL
