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Brazil is the market where a local method overtook cards in a few years. PIX, launched by the Central Bank in late 2020, is now the most used way to pay online: instant, around the clock, with no chargebacks and a QR code the payer scans in any banking app. A checkout built for Brazil in 2026 starts with PIX and treats cards as the method for instalments and for payers who want them, with Boleto as the fallback for everyone else.
The methods, and what each is for
| Method | Share of online payments | How the payer pays | Confirmation | Chargebacks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIX | The largest, and growing | Scans a QR code or pastes a code into any banking app | Seconds | None |
| Domestic cards with instalments | Large for higher amounts | Enters the card and chooses the number of instalments | Immediate | Yes |
| International cards | Small | Enters the card; issuer rules often decline cross-border | Immediate | Yes |
| Boleto | Shrinking but still used by payers without cards | Pays a slip at a bank, a lottery outlet or in a banking app | Up to a business day | None |
| Mercado Pago and other wallets | Niche | Pays from the wallet’s balance or a stored card | Seconds | Per wallet |
PIX took the place that cards and Boleto used to share, and the numbers published by the Central Bank show it carrying more transactions than cards and Boleto together. The share by amount is lower, because instalment purchases stay on cards.
What the checkout needs
- PIX first. Show the QR code and the copy-paste code, confirm within seconds, and use PIX keys for payouts.
- Boleto for payers without cards. A printed or digital slip paid at banks and lotteries; confirmation takes up to a business day.
- Domestic cards with instalments. Larger purchases are split into instalments; the local acquirer must support them.
- Mercado Pago for payers who keep a balance in the wallet.
- Local currency and local acquiring. Payments in reais through a local provider; an international card acquired abroad is declined far more often and costs the payer a foreign-transaction fee.
PIX in detail
A PIX payment is a transfer between accounts on the Central Bank’s instant system: the merchant’s provider creates a QR code with the amount and the payee, the payer scans it in the app of any bank or wallet, confirms, and the provider is notified within seconds. The code expires; a payment after expiry is reported with the amount received and handled by the provider’s rules. Refunds go back through PIX to the payer’s account. For payouts the recipient’s PIX key, an e-mail, a phone number, a tax number or a random key, replaces bank details, which makes seller settlements and withdrawals a matter of seconds. Automatic PIX, the recurring variant, is spreading provider by provider and is the method to watch for subscriptions.
Cards and instalments
Brazilian payers expect to split a larger purchase into instalments at the checkout, with or without interest; the issuer approves the whole amount and the acquirer pays the merchant in instalments or in advance for a fee. An acquirer that does not support instalments loses the purchase; a route that sends a Brazilian card to a foreign acquirer loses it too, because issuers decline cross-border transactions far more often. Domestic cards also include the Elo and Hipercard schemes next to Visa and Mastercard, and a local acquirer accepts all of them.
Why orchestration matters here
A Brazilian payer may fail a card payment because of an issuer rule and succeed with PIX a minute later. Routing PIX first for Brazilian payers, cascading cards across two acquirers and keeping Boleto as the last resort recovers payments that a single integration loses. Two PIX providers in one route group keep the method on the page when one has an outage. Settlement, taxes and currency conversion stay with the licensed local provider — EBANX, dLocal or PagSeguro in the Tranzify catalogue — and the ledger records them per payment.
Payouts
Sellers, players and partners in Brazil are paid by PIX to their keys, in seconds, from the client’s balance at the local provider; the file upload in the back office handles thousands of payouts with validation of the keys before sending, and a returned payout comes back to the balance with the reason. Cards are rarely the payout rail in Brazil; bank transfers outside PIX are slower and are used where the recipient has no key.
Who holds the licence
The local providers in the catalogue are payment institutions authorised by the Central Bank of Brazil, or work with one; a client contracts with them under its own licence and enters the accounts in its terminals. Tranzify supplies the software, routes and journals, and never holds the funds. The Brazil country page lists the methods with their share and the providers; the PIX method page describes the flow step by step; the industry pages for e-commerce and iGaming show how PIX, cards and Boleto combine in each vertical.
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