Brazil and US clash over future of payments as popular Pix system stirs global interest

By Marcela Ayres

BRASILIA, July 21 (Reuters) - Brazil's Pix, 1 of the world's astir palmy instant-payment systems, has go a flashpoint betwixt Brasília and Washington arsenic the Trump medication aims to support U.S. firms from the model's increasing entreaty successful dozens of countries.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer named Pix, operated by Brazil's cardinal bank, arsenic 1 of the barriers to commercialized that ‌he cited to warrant caller 25% tariffs connected imports from Brazil taking effect this week.

"We're not asking Brazil to get escaped of Pix," a elder Trump medication authoritative said. However, Washington is ‌pushing to debar a concern successful which "Pix gets peculiar attraction simply due to the fact that it's owned and operated by the government," the authoritative said.

Brazilian officials person agelong argued the disapproval is aimed astatine protecting U.S. recognition paper companies. USTR documents accidental that Brazil's practices "may undermine the competitiveness of ​U.S. companies engaged successful integer commercialized and physics outgo services."

The tensions underline the increasing menace of disruption posed by government-built outgo infrastructure models specified arsenic Pix to recognition paper companies' decades-long dominance of planetary payments.

Pix enables real-time transfers betwixt accounts done banking apps, combining escaped person-to-person payments with importantly little costs and faster transactions for businesses, bypassing overmuch of the accepted card-payments chain.

At a quality league past week, wherever elder officials denounced the U.S. tariffs arsenic politically motivated, cardinal slope main Gabriel Galipolo dismissed complaints astir Pix's interaction connected paper revenues and marketplace entree arsenic absurd.

He said the fig of radical utilizing recognition cards had accrued successful implicit presumption due to the fact that Pix pushed truthful galore Brazilians to unfastened ‌bank accounts, and that Pix was a nationalist service, not a competitor.

"It would ⁠be benignant of similar saying that creating basal sanitation wounded the revenues of those who ain h2o trucks," helium said.

The cardinal slope launched Pix successful 2020 and it rapidly became the ascendant outgo method successful Latin America's largest economy, overtaking paper transactions by its 3rd twelvemonth of operation.

Pix present accounts for much than fractional of each transactions ⁠in Brazil by measurement and has astir 170 cardinal users, oregon 80% of the country's population.

While akin services beryllium successful respective countries, including India's UPI and FedNow successful the United States, nary has matched the explosive uptake of Pix.

Through the archetypal fractional of this year, Brazil's cardinal slope signed agreements to stock accusation astir Pix with 65 planetary counterparts, from affluent economies specified arsenic Germany and Canada to emerging-market peers specified arsenic South Africa and Turkey.