Business

PIX will make bank transfers grow in Brazilian e-commerce, says FIS report

This means that, because of the country's new instant payments system, Brazil is going against the global trend that points to a smaller share of transfers in online purchases.

Brazil has 200 million digital accounts and a challenge: how to make them actually used — Image: Shutterstock

Reuters and LABS

10.Mar.2022 17:31 BRT
UPDATED 11.Mar.2022 18:32 BRT

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The use of PIX in e-commerce is expected to almost double by 2025, putting Brazil in the opposite direction of the international trend of increasing use of bank transfers to pay for online purchases, according to The Global Payments Report, a study by American financial technology services company Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), which acquired control of British payments group WorldPay in 2019.

According to the survey, in Brazil, bank transfers accounted for 10.9% of payments made in e-commerce in 2021, and this share is expected to rise to almost 18% in 2025.

In global terms, bank transfers accounted for 7.4% of the value of e-commerce transactions in 2021 – a number close to that indicated by the Beyond Borders 2021/2022 study, published annually by EBANX, the fintech that owns LABS, which, in November of last year, predicted that PIX would end the year representing about 6% of payments for online purchases in the country.

As might be expected, credit cards followed the lead as a means of payment in e-commerce in 2021, accounting for 44.7% of the total, followed by digital wallets (16%) and debit cards (14%).

In general, however, the FIS says that the share of transfers is expected to decrease to 6.2% by 2025, including in countries neighboring Brazil, such as Peru (from 8.8% to 3.8%) and Colombia (16.5% to less than 10%).

Created at the end of 2020, PIX instant payment system has reached more than 113 million users. And it tends to gain even more traction, as the mechanism is increasingly used not only for transfers between people but also for buying goods and services. According to Beyond Borders 2021/2022, the estimated volume of online purchases paid for with PIX will grow at a rate of 95% until 2024, with PIX being able to capture at least 9% of the total volume of Brazilian e-commerce.

Latin America as a whole has grown 22% annually since 2017, says the report, and is expected to continue to grow 19% year-on-year through 2025, reaching a volume of $79 billion, well above the 55.3% growth expected for global e-commerce in the period, to $8 trillion.

The Argentine market, according to FIS, was the one that recorded the highest annual growth (71%) in 2021 and could grow 26% a year until 2025. Whatever the projection, FIS guarantees, double digits will be common in the region. In addition, the company predicts Brazil will grow 18% annually and Mexico 17% by 2025.

Translated and co-written by LABS