Colombia’s Instant Payments System: The New Pix?

Colombia’s new instant payment system, Bre-B, is now live—modeled closely on Brazil’s highly successful Pix and developed in part by the same Latin American payments firm, EBANX.

Early results are promising: more than 30 million people have already registered, representing 76% of Colombia’s adult population. The system also has strong federal backing. Soon, Bre-B will be integrated with Cajas de Compensación Familiar (Family Compensation Funds), which provides social benefits and subsidies to Colombian citizens.

A Favorable Economic Landscape

Colombia’s economy is well-positioned for this new payment method. Its digital economy has been growing at double-digit rates since 2019 and is expected to reach $52 billion this year, making it the third-largest Latin American market after Brazil and Mexico.

Latin America, more broadly, is receptive to digital payments: according to Beyond Borders, seven out of 10 Latin American adults have made or received payments through digital channels.

Another factor points to Colombia’s potential for success. It has one of the lowest credit card penetration rates in Latin America, with only 18% of adults having access to credit cards. This could give it an advantage similar to Pix in Brazil, which grew from 68% penetration among adults in 2020 to 90% by 2023. By comparison, credit cards account for roughly 40% of Brazil’s payments market.

Compare and Contrast with Pix

Many of Bre-B’s features were inspired by the Pix rollout, starting with user identification through basic keys like phone numbers and emails.

Bre-B has already issued over 80 million of these payment keys. Other similar features include QR code payments, mandatory interoperability for instant transfers, and time-based transaction limits to prevent fraud. 

However, there are key differences as well. While Brazil built a single rail between financial institutions to make Pix interoperable, Colombia developed a new ecosystem for Bre-B on top of its existing payments infrastructure. This approach allowed it to connect established account transfer services while also providing flexibility for new integrations in the future.  

Currently, Bre-B supports only peer-to-peer transfers and consumer-to-business payments.

The next step will be onboarding government entities like Cajas de Compensación Familiar, allowing citizens to pay taxes and receive government disbursements through Bre-B. Future plans include recurring payments for subscription-based services and batch transfers for payroll and high-volume payments.