Joining Pix makes the amount of payment transactions jump 40% in 2021, says BC

The amount of non-cash payment transactions grew 40% last year from 2020 to 58.8 billion, largely due to Pix’s success.

The data are from the publication “Statistics of Retail Payments and Cards in Brazil” for 2021, released this Tuesday (22) by the Central Bank (BC). In financial volume, the advance was 27%, to R$ 76.9 trillion, equivalent to nine times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.

“The growth in the total number of transactions (excluding those in kind) observed in 2021, compared to the previous year, was mainly due to the accelerated adoption of the use of Pix by society, as a new alternative for making payments”, said the BC, in note.

“And also due to the expansion of the card market, which maintained growth in credit (34%), debit (18%) and prepaid (213%) modalities”, completed the BC.

In 2021, there was still a slight increase in the use of direct debit (9%) and boleto (9%), and a reduction in the use of checks, interbank and intrabank transfers.

According to data released by the body, in number of operations, Pix surpassed credit and debit cards in the fourth quarter and, after that, it continued to grow, reaching 5.469 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2022. in turn, they remained relatively stable until the end of June.

With regard to participation in the number of transactions by type of payment instrument, Pix stood out, reaching a level of 16% of these transactions in 2021, to the detriment of other means of payment, such as, for example, boleto, whose participation was reduced from 13% to 10% and direct debit from 15% to 11% compared to 2020.

The share of card transactions, in turn, accounted for 51% of payments in 2021 – in 2020, they accounted for 53%.

TED, in turn, was the payment instrument with the highest average value per transaction in 2021, of BRL 27,855, followed by intrabank transfers, with BRL 14,767, showing that these have been the payment instruments used for transactions more voluminous. The average value of transactions with boleto reached BRL 1,322, while the average transaction with Pix was BRL 548 and with card BRL 86.

The BC points out that, in the card market, there was significant growth in prepaid last year, with participation growing from 6% to 13% compared to 2020. “It should be noted that the prepaid card is a relevant driver of inclusion which, along with other payment instruments, has been promoting access to the digitalization of payments and electronic commerce transactions. It is mainly offered by payment institutions (fintechs) ”, emphasized the BC.

Scanning

The cell phone was the main channel for transactions and statements and balance queries, in terms of quantity, in 2021, with 68% of the total. Considering only payment operations, cell phones accounted for 60% of transactions, while those carried out at branches, service points and ATMs accounted for 8% of the total.

In the same direction of greater digitalization, the percentage of non-face-to-face credit card transactions continued to rise, corresponding to 29.2% in the last quarter of 2021, compared to 27.2% at the end of 2020.

Fees

As for the Interchange Fees (TIC) practiced in the card market, all have shown relative stability in recent years. At the end of 2021, prepaid ICT (1.25%) was at a significantly higher level than that observed in debit (0.54%) and closer to the ICT practiced in credit (1.61%). In a recently edited resolution, the BC established a limit of 0.7% for ICT on prepaid cards and 0.5% on debit cards.