Hi Fintech Architects,
In this episode, Lex speaks with Harish Natarajan - Practice Manager, Financial Inclusion and Infrastructure, Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation at the World Bank, and Carlos Brandt - The Senior Advisor for Pix at the Central Bank of Brazil. Together they discuss the remarkable success of Pix, Brazil's real-time payment system, which now sees over 6 billion transactions per month and is used by more than 90% of the adult population and 80% of companies. Lex explores how Pix was created by the Central Bank of Brazil with strong public-private collaboration, backed by regulatory authority and supported by a co-creation model with stakeholders. Key to its adoption were a low-cost centralized infrastructure, clear branding, mandatory participation by large banks, and a robust national communication strategy.
Globally, Pix is seen as a leading example of fast payment system deployment, driven by the central bank acting as a neutral coordinator and scheme owner. Lex also examines the technical architecture, built in-house by a surprisingly small team of 55–65 people, and how scalable infrastructure and extensibility have enabled rapid growth and innovation.
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Key discussion points:
Pix achieved mass adoption through public-private co-creation and legal mandate: Pix now processes over 6 billion transactions per month, with 90% of Brazil’s adult population and 80% of businesses actively using it. Its success stems from a strategic legal mandate in 2013 granting the Central Bank regulatory and operational authority over retail payments. The Central Bank then led a co-creation process involving both public and private stakeholders through the Pix Forum, fostering alignment, inclusivity, and strong network effects.
A lean but powerful team built a nation-scale real-time payments system:
The Pix infrastructure was built entirely in-house by a relatively small team, 30-40 people for the technical infrastructure layer and around 25 for the payment scheme layer. It operates 24/7 with real-time settlement and uses centralized infrastructure separate from Brazil’s traditional large-value payment rails. This centralized, purpose-built architecture dramatically lowered costs and enabled rapid rollout.Strategic communication and mandated participation drove adoption at scale:
The Central Bank led a national communication campaign to build trust, establish a strong brand identity, and educate the public. Simultaneously, it mandated major banks (with over 500,000 active accounts) to join Pix, triggering widespread voluntary adoption from smaller PSPs. The rollout included a restricted pilot phase and emphasized user-friendly features like QR codes and aliases to boost convenience and usage from day one.
Background
Carlos Brandt spent nearly two decades at Brazil’s Central Bank before joining Pix, where he led modernization of the country’s payments infrastructure. As Deputy Head of the Department of Competition and Financial Market Structure, he championed regulatory frameworks that encouraged innovation, inclusion, and competition in payments. With degrees in engineering and law, Carlos introduced a multidisciplinary, user‑centric approach to policy, laying the groundwork for Pix and Brazil’s digital payments revolution.
Harish Natarajan, now Practice Manager for Financial Inclusion and Infrastructure at the World Bank, joined the organization after holding senior roles at Visa in business development, operations, and risk management. He holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from IIT‑Madras and a postgraduate diploma in Finance and IT Systems from IIM‑Calcutta
At the World Bank, Harish leads global efforts on safe, efficient payment systems, financial inclusion, and digital finance - representing the Bank on international working groups like CPMI and contributing to major initiatives such as the Universal Financial Access 2020 agenda.
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Topics:
Pix, Central Bank of Brazil, World Bank, Visa, Citibank, M-Pesa, Alipay, SPI, fintech, payments, PSP, API, Fast Payments, Payments Infrastructure, PayTech
Timestamps
1’19: Building Pix from the Ground Up: Carlos Brandt on Modernizing Brazil’s Payment Infrastructure
3’03: Fast Payments for Financial Inclusion: Harish Natarajan on the World Bank’s Role in Modern Payment Infrastructure
4’29: From Cash to 5 Billion Transactions a Month: How Pix Transformed Brazil’s Payment Ecosystem Through Public-Private Collaboration
10’41: Why Pix Succeeded Where Others Struggled: The Power of Neutral Coordination and Public-Private Synergy
12’40: Inside the Pix Forum: How Brazil Built a Collaborative Process for Payment Innovation
15’07: Fast Payments at Scale: Market Coordination, Infrastructure, and Global Lessons from Pix
20’55: Engineering Pix: How a Small Team Built Brazil’s 24/7 National Payments Infrastructure from Scratch
27’28: Driving Nationwide Adoption: How Strategic Communication and Mandates Powered Pix’s Rollout Across Brazil
34’14: Scaling for Success: Why Communication, Extensibility, and API Design Are Key to Evolving Payment Systems
37’23: Building Trust Through Cooperation: How Regulators Can Foster Innovation While Balancing Public and Private Interests
40’06: The channels used to connect with Carlos & learn more about The Central Bank of Brazil.
40’39: The channels used to connect with Harish & learn more about The World Bank
Illustrated Transcript
Lex Sokolin:
Hi, everybody, and welcome to today's conversation. I'm absolutely thrilled about our discussion today where we will focus on Pix, the amazing payments infrastructure in Brazil. We have with us today two fantastic guests, Harish Natarajan, who is the Practice Manager for Financial Inclusion Infrastructure at the world Bank, and also very importantly, Carlos Brandt, who is the senior advisor for Pix at the central Bank of Brazil. With that, welcome to the conversation. Maybe we start a little bit with backgrounds. Carlos, can you tell us about kind of the start of your career and how you got involved in the financial industry?
Carlos Brandt:
Thank you very much. My pleasure to be here and to share a little bit about what we have been done in and of course, somewhat look to the future.
My name is Carlos Brandt. I've been working at the central Bank of Brazil since 2002. I started my career at the Central Bank with the modernization of the national payment system in Brazil. So, we were implementing the new <Audio Issue> system back then. After that, I mean, I've been working in the payments industry with the payments issues and financial market remarkable infrastructure since then. I worked very close to the new law for the, gave the mandate to the central Bank to act as a regulator in the retail payment space, which gave space and of course, legal power to act more focused on on retail payments. And that's kind of the start point for the for the Pix project. And I started to work on a big project about 2016 with some preliminary studies. I led the team that was responsible for the design and implementation of Pix. And after that, I led the Pix Management and operations team until 2024. And I'm now senior advisor. I mean, discussing and planning the new features, the new developments in the ecosystem. So, my pleasure to be here again.
Lex Sokolin:
I'm excited to get into the details of the story. Harish, Harish, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brings you to the conversation and how the world Bank plays a role?
Harish Natarajan:
Great. Thank you and good to be here, Lex. And also, in particular with Carlos, with whom we have been working for quite some time. My name is Harish Natarajan. I'm the practice manager for a global team focusing on financial inclusion and infrastructure. I joined the bank about 15 years back from the private sector where I had had stints at visa, Citibank and also some software development companies, all more or less focused in the banking technology domain and at the world Bank. As I mentioned, I lead the team focusing on inclusion and infrastructure. And the World Bank is a development finance institution. As you know, we work with developing countries to support them in ending extreme poverty, boosting shared prosperity on a liveable planet. My work is focused on using the financial inclusion as a platform for supporting in achieving these objectives.
And as part of the Financial Inclusion Initiative's financial infrastructure is a big part of our work. And payment systems are a core part of the financial infrastructure agenda at the bank. And that's how I'm connected to this topic of fast payments we're discussing today.
Lex Sokolin:
Wonderful. Okay, so let's set the scene. How well adopted is Pix now. Like what is the scale of it today? And before it was launched and even, I dated in the very beginnings. What did the payments industry and infrastructure look like in Brazil?
Carlos Brandt:
That's a great starting point here for our conversation. I think the adoption of Pix is, I mean, very high. I would say quite impressive. If you look at the figures, we have more than 90% of the adult population using beaks, actually using Pix. We have about 80% of all the companies already using Pix as well. We have ours also the government as part of the platform. So, a lot of transactions, about more than 5 billion transactions a month being settled in the Pix ecosystem.
And that kind of shows the trust, the confidence that the population has in this, in this payment instrument. And just maybe giving a step back on to understand how we decided to have a new platform and, and what was the context back then. So, I think the, the, let's say the starting point of the idea of having an instant payment system in the country, in the country, as a public platform, was the legal framework that I mentioned on the introduction that granted the central Bank of Brazil authority over the retail payment system. So, these powers are not limited to regulatory power but also give the central bank that the ability to really intervene in the ecosystem, including being a provider of systems and platforms, and of course, also with public objectives in mind to promote efficiency and security and payment system, financial inclusion and so on. So, with this mandate, the central Bank of Brazil included in its National Payment System policy for two consecutive years back in 2013 and 14, this strategic direction towards the creation of an instant payment ecosystem in the country.
So also based on this legal framework, the central Bank conducted an in-depth study of the retail payment system. And what we identified by then was a high or a very high reliance on cash. In 2019, cash was still the most widely used payments payment method in Brazil, so was accounted for more than 75% of the total number of transactions. And of course, this brings high social costs of course, how all of you know about that. Additionally, to that high use of cash, the central bank found that the other electronic payment methods had significant gaps, particularly in terms of convenience and cost for end users. And that was preventing a fast migration to digital payments, which was our main goal. Back then, at the same time, we studied the international experience to identify lessons learned from those jurisdictions that had already implemented such systems. And of course, we always considered the specific needs of each jurisdiction, so our intention was not to just copy and paste one particular solution to our visualization.
The development of this new ecosystem began to take shape with the creation of a working group. And this and this resulted in a publication of what we call the Ecosystem General framework. At the end of 2018, and with this foundation in place, we established the Pix Forum in 2019. And we have a very we had a very open discussion with, with all the stakeholders about the ecosystem details and technical specifications through a very strong co-creation approach. So that's I mean, kind of the story of how we built the ecosystem. And I would like to highlight here on my conclusion for that initial point here, is that the piece was the result of very intense dialogue and a collaborative effort between public and private sector. So that's I think it's a key point of, of how the success and how the numbers that I mentioned before.
Lex Sokolin:
The numbers are quite astounding. I think the latest I've seen is 6 billion transactions per month. And the highest day is something like 250 million transactions. And, I mean, it's just adopted all across the country in a way that, you know, technology companies would dream to be and haven't.
I'm curious about that period prior to the technology being developed and being launched. And I ask this because, you know, there are different regions that have different actors that participate in the creation of payments technologies. You know, in some cases, it could be the central bank or the government trying to do a real time payments network in other places. You'll have, you know in China its and financial and kind of like a high-tech firm that emerged as the modern payment rail in Africa. It was M-Pesa through the telecoms and so very different players, industry players, whether it's the government or the telecom industry or the high-tech industry or financial firms, you know, in some places it's Visa and Mastercard and they just get to eat everything. End up being as the driver of modern payment architecture. Why was Fix able to be successful where a lot of efforts by either governments or large financial institutions, you know, across the world have struggled to reach adoption and to be the, you know, the primary architecture.
Carlos, I'd love your view on this because you mentioned this kind of public private partnership. But also, I'm curious as to, you know, what you've seen across the world as well.
Carlos Brandt:
To go back to the cooperation aspect that I mentioned was built and will continue to be developed on a cooperative basis, as I said, with a co-creation approach. And I think this kind of explores how the synergy that we can get the most of out of each stakeholder in the ecosystem. So, the central bank has this coordination role as a neutral agent to really set the ecosystem on equal basis. And of course, leave the private sector to really provide the service. Yeah, I believe there's a, as I said, significant synergy to be explored. And the likelihood of success, in my opinion, increases when coordinated by the central bank by neutral entities. So PSBs, as I said, that are directly responsible for delivering high quality services and driving innovation on the platform.
Developing products solutions for how the society, how the end users, and of course how this can meet the diverse needs of everyone, whether individuals, businesses or the government. So, I would emphasize the importance of having a strong governance mechanism to foster this collaborative discussion and interaction. But I think that the key aspect that made us really successful was this interaction between all the stakeholders. And that kind of got a very kind of broad a win game for, for the payment’s ecosystem in Brazil.
Lex Sokolin:
How does that work? You know, the collaboration and the participation of different counterparties to build the system, like you mentioned, the forum and then sort of reflecting different voices. What's the practical process by which you put that together?
Carlos Brandt:
We collect inputs from the market first to understand what are the priorities for the ecosystem. Pix intends to be good for any use case. And that's an ongoing development because, of course, we cannot have all the solutions, all the features.
Since the very beginning, we try to have a very wide solution since 2020. But of course, many new products would come in the future. Right? So, the first step is to really prioritize what we will be developed in a specific cycle. And then we kind of make a proposal for that particular solution for that particular product. Just to give an example, we are working now on our topics, a solution for recurring payments. And after this first draft or this proposal, we got feedback. We got inputs from all the Pix forum. And the Pix forum is very open. So, all the Pix participants and other also other stakeholders, government bodies, software providers, law firms and other stakeholders, so they provide input for that particular draft. We analyze, we have a technical assessment of that of all the feedback, and we end up with, with the final solution to, to be implemented. And after that we, we, we start the implementation.
We have also a very strong approach on communication. So we joined forces to communicate with the public, to let the public know about the new products and new features, how it works and, and what would be the benefits. What would be the use cases that is going to be covered by that particular product? So that's pretty much how it works in the Pix forum. And, and of course after that pig forum work, we started the implementation and communication. As I said.
Lex Sokolin:
Harish, what do you see all over the world in terms of the interplay between banks, central banks, telecoms, high tech firms and, you know, let's say application providers? How does this soup resolve into something successful? And what do you think are the threats that drive adoption.
Harish Natarajan:
This is, of course, a dramatic kind of a case study of how the positive impact of these kinds of systems. But it is not the only the only example globally there are there have been a few others who have also had significant successes, and it's a global phenomenon.
Of course, it's in different stages, but clearly the benchmark here is, is Pix in a couple of other countries, the point about systems like kind of basically the fast payment systems, which is Pix is a particular implementation of that is essentially about it being a market level infrastructure to support the support and amplify the efforts of each of the individual payment providers in the market. So, you refer to the Alipay in China, and there have been also some examples of in emerging markets like M-Pesa in Kenya. These are all efforts driven by individual providers. And in that particular country context, they were able to really reach population scale. Kind of each one of them had coverage of over 80% plus of the population. But that's not a given in every country where there are multiple players. And each one is kind of seeking to drive adoption, but they lack the ability to make it seamless for their customers to transact across the country. And that's where the role of market infrastructures come in, and fast payments in particular.
And since it is a marketable infrastructure, I think it has to overcome several market coordination failures. So here you are trying to bring together not just banks, but of course, even within banks there are different types of banks. There are large banks, small banks and so on. It's not just banks, but also you're trying to bring in new category of players like non-bank new generation payment players, fintech companies. And you also need to bring in some of the other ecosystem players like the pillars and so on. So that requires a very significant amount of coordination. And that's where the role of a neutral party, which Carlos was mentioning, becomes important. That doesn't mean that the neutral party has to operate the system, which is a decision which was made in the case of Brazil. But the championing role and convening role, clearly, I think, needs some kind of a neutral body, and central banks or the equivalents are well positioned for that. And every country where we see success in adoption of fast payments, there is a championing role played by the central bank.
Then the other point is that there are also some structural differences of the new generation of payment systems, like fast payments in particular, versus what was there before, and which actually structurally brings down the cost and then also improves the user experience and expands the scope of usage of digital payments. That's why also there is very rapid adoption once these systems are implemented. So, for example, with the introduction of QR code-based payments, you would dramatically lower the cost of merchant acceptance. You don't. You no longer need a device, and you no longer need it to be hooked up to the telecom networks. You don't need ongoing maintenance of those devices. So, it basically it helps in lowering the cost of acceptance. And then from a consumer perspective, a feature like use of aliases by which you don't have to remember all the full details of the payment credentials, the bank routing number, and all of that, you just need to map it to an email address, phone number, or any other pseudonym to identify a merchant, or to identify a friend or family member whom you want to transact.
And that really dramatically lowers the barrier to use payments. And also, the further the integration with third party applications like social media applications, e-commerce applications basically give a seamless experience to the end user to use digital payments. So, I think the structural factors, plus also bringing the entire industry together on a platform, I think are the reasons why I think these systems, once introduced and well-designed, really have a viral moment.
Lex Sokolin:
Right? Yeah. I mean, the only other example I can think of is the identity system in India as the anchor for countrywide payments accounts.
Harish Natarajan:
So interesting you make that point. I think there are some preconditions for such systems to be successful. So, in that sense, it is not to be seen as a silver bullet now. And there's a lot of preparatory work required. And unless you have an easy mechanism for customers to complete all their know your kind of the customer due diligence related requirements of opening an account. And then similarly for merchants, unless those things are sorted out, these systems are will have minimal effect. So, in that sense, there are a lot of foundational reforms which need to happen. And digital identity is one part of that.
Lex Sokolin:
I think if you have solutions from prior generations of technology for some of these pieces, they're often blockers for being able to, you know, build something new and modern. And so it takes a lot of coordination. Carlos, I'm really interested in, as the system was being built and designed with all this feedback. The approach to architecting it, like what is the technical architecture of the platform. What's the design of it and how is it being built? Like how large was the team? From a developer perspective that supports this, like what kind of resourcing is needed? So, if you're thinking about it almost as like a fintech payments company, like what was the building of that team to create the system?
Carlos Brandt:
Yeah, I think that's a that's important aspect because as Harish was mentioning, it's a decision to develop the system in-house or, of course, have an infrastructure or settlement infrastructure from a vendor and so on.
But just maybe giving a step back on this aspect here to explain that the Pix’s ecosystem is composed of two layers. So, the first layer is the payment scheme layer. And of course, the second layer is the technical infrastructure layer. So, the payment scheme layer is, and both of them are conducted by the central Bank of Brazil. So, the central Bank of Brazil is the scheme owner and also is the operation operator of the technical platforms. But the payment scheme layer is just responsible for establishing the general rules that govern the platform or the payment service, and how the financial and payment institutions can provide a payment service to end users. So, deciding on the new features and how the product is going to is going to work and things like that. Whereas the technical infrastructure layer encompasses the operation platforms, as I said, use it for settling transactions between participating institutions. So, of course, some of these transactions are just kind of book transfers, but most of the big transactions are settled between participating institutions and for and also for storing and sharing anti-fraud and Elias information and Elias, what we call here, and passkeys can be mobile phone number, email address, text ID number or random code.
The settlement platform operates 24/7 processing transactions one-by-one. So real time processing mode is based on centralized technology. We built a brand-new platform for that. So, we don't use the let's say the main rig system, which is more focused for large value inter-bank transactions. But this new platform was built for supporting only Pix transactions and more towards retail payments of course. And the participants connect to this platform using the national financial System network. And this network is the same network that is used for carrying information for set one in the main system. So, the network is the same, but we ended up with a two-party system, one for large value transactions and the other one for exclusively for big transactions. The database for Anti-Fraud information and big schemes also operates in a centralized approach. So, we have this database that support this dual function and the fraud information and big schemes, the participants. It's also interesting to say that the participants can connect to these operation platforms, the RGGI system, what we call SPI and, in the database, either using a direct connection or indirectly through a partnership with an institution that has a direct connection.
So, as I said, both platforms were developed in-house and are operated by the central bank. We I mean, the resources that we use, it's hard to to really count in terms of resource use because of course, the team, the team is allocated for, for specific development, but they also work in other central bank systems. But if we could put in a general number here, about 30 to 40 people here dedicated to, to building these two platforms. And then of course after that not as much as many people giving the support and then the maintenance over time. So that's pretty much what we have here in terms of efforts.
Lex Sokolin:
I mean, that's pretty amazing and kind of crazy, right? 30 to 40 people to run almost the entire country's consumer payments infrastructure.
Carlos Brandt:
We have, of course, limited resources. We have to put a lot of energy on that. Think it's clear for everyone. We also have another team allocated for the other layer that I mentioned.
So, the payment scheme layer. So, we have about 15 people in the or a little bit more than that now 20-25 people. It was 15 a few years ago. We started with a very small team, like about 3 to 4 people at the very beginning. And of course, over time when things were getting bigger and bigger and with more, I mean, demand for new features and improvements and so on with the team also of course, had to increase. Right. So, we have another, another 20 to 25 people allocated to the payment scheme layer. So, 25 in the payment scheme layer and 30 to 40 in the technical and infrastructure layer. That's the number that we have now.
Lex Sokolin:
There are many companies that have thousands or even 100,000 people working on something that would aspire to be the scale of picks. Can you talk about the adoption and the rollout to the public and the merchants and getting people to actually integrate it and use it? Because, you know, again, in a company, you would have as many developers as you would have salespeople and go to market experts and customer success people.
All this stuff about having servicing and distribution. But you've had fantastic distribution as a rail that everybody can build on. Can you talk about the strategy for rollout and what were the different things you've tried, and how did you think about it, getting it to market. Because again, there's lots of examples of government initiatives that are amazing on paper. You know, open banking in Europe, for example, that has really little uptake, even though it's a wonderful initiative. But you seem to have cracked the code on it.
Carlos Brandt:
The strategy to drive adoption is really a key issue. I always say that even if you have the best product or the, I mean the best technical specification, the best system and so on. If it's not clear for the end users that they or the benefits that they can get with that particular system or using that particular payment instrument. If people don't know how to use it and so on. That's I mean, that's just not going to happen. And of course, in a complex ecosystem like Pix where we have the central bank as a scheme owner, but we also have all the PSP’s and as I said, it's different types of PSP’s in the ecosystems of big banks, small banks, credit unions, payment institutions, other fintechs, and so on.
So, we had to really put a lot of energy in. Coordinating and having a very good strategy for adoption. So, we started our full operation. On November 16th, 2020, the registration of big skies was open to the users some days before on October 5th. If I'm not mistaken, of the same year. And that was to enable transactions to be carried out using big, big schemes from the very first day of big operation. So, we would allow a very good experience since the beginning, so people wouldn't be frustrated of having a new payment instrument but also have to insert to import all the payment details and so on. So additionally, we operate in a restricted manner. Between November 3rd and November 15th. So a little less than 15 days of restricted operation. So, during this period of time, Pix was made available only to a select group of customers from each participating institution. The operation was not 24/7 seven days a week. Well, the objective was to really ensure that everything was prepared for the for the full go live.
But regarding Pix adoption, personally, I would really highlight the fundamental role of communication. So, to support the communication process, the central bank was deemed necessary. I mean fundamental to create a strong name and a brand for the identification of these transactions. So that was Pix. And of course, we have a logo and all the, the, the branding around Pix to facilitate communication between. End users and therefore driving adoption. Right. So, after creating this branding and the name and the brand and so on. The central bank had to plan or to implement a comprehensive communication plan. Of course, the central bank would not be capable of having all the communication actions by itself and so on. We have a limited reach regarding our communication channels, social media and so on. So, we use multiple channels to provide information to end users. So, this communication plan included communication efforts of the PSPs with their customers. So, we some of the communication actions, we mandated the PSPs so that we provided a lot of information for them to really communicate with the with the customers and supplying various communication providers in the society with relevant information.
Of course, beyond the PSPs, such as media, digital influencers, we participated in various events covering innovation and payments. That was to really make sure that the people, the businesses the government were ready for the new instrument. But of course, I mean, beyond communication, I think it's fair to mention that there are other important factors factors to drive adoption, such as supporting multiple use cases, offering various initiation methods like not only Passkeys, but also QR codes, NFC payments that we are implementing now, building a low-cost ecosystem. And that aspect that we mentioned here about the effort that we that we put in the in developing the platform, and of course, being the central bank, a non-profit organization is a very important fact. It was a very important factor, at least in the case to reach a low-cost ecosystem and of course, giving room for a no fee policy for individuals, for example, but also promoting competition within the ecosystem, ensuring system security and things like that. There are a lot of aspects to that really driving adoption. But again, I would emphasize that the fundamental role of communication here.
Lex Sokolin:
Was the adoption of the protocol mandated in any way. And then for the PSPs that you mentioned, like what was fixed, replacing, what kind of workflow were they using before they integrated into Pix?
Carlos Brandt:
As I said, we have this role of being the payment scheme owner. And in that sense, that's a contractual relationship between the central bank and other PSPs. But at the same time, of course, with the with the legal power that we have from the law published or issued in 2013, we also have the regulatory power, right? So, with the regulatory power, we mandated the major banks to be part of the platform and adopt the protocol. So, all the PSPs that had back then, more than 500,000 active transaction accounts were mandated to join the ecosystem. And of course, all the other institutions just saw the network effect that this platform would reach and so on.
So, they joined on a voluntary basis. Right. So right now, I think we would have I mean almost, I would say every PSP in the country or part of the ecosystem. But, yes, the mandate rule mandating that the major banks were part of the platform was key for further adoption as well.
Lex Sokolin:
Any color on the rollout that you would want to add in Brazil, or in other jurisdictions that have tried something similar?
Harish Natarajan:
I think I would like to emphasize the point around communication which Carlos is making, and it is not a common role for central banks to be in. In particular, if they are the operators of the systems, then for them to then take on the role of communicating is not a common role for central banks in the context of retail payment usage and so on. And we have seen this play out in different ways. Of course, not in all countries are the central banks, operators or systems, but we have seen the role of communication campaigns as extremely important.
And the other thing is these are evolving systems. And in many cases, we see that the system starts with very limited capabilities, very often just person-to-person transfers. And then over a period of time it evolves to include other features. And that is a very important point because the system is responding also to the needs in the market and how the market is evolving. And hence when you are implementing such systems, you need to have the extensibility of the system in mind when you design it. And then also you need to have the scalability point in mind because these systems are really expanding usage very dramatically. So it's almost like an exponential growth. And that has implications for system design which needs to be considered. And then the last point is about the nature of such systems is that it gets integrated into various parts of the digital economy. So, it needs to be designed in a way that it is easily interfacing with various other institutions and systems. So, the role of APIs, standards, all of that become very important.
Lex Sokolin:
I have a concluding question for you, Carlos. It's really about principles, philosophies and posture. I think there are many places in the world where the relationship between industry and regulators and various government bodies is pretty fraught. And, you know, the innovation that comes out of industry is often seen with some sort of suspicion or skepticism, you know, and whether that's embedded finance through fintech or whether that's blockchain based payments networks, it takes a lot of political work to get anywhere in terms of building modern things in finance. And I think it's very special and rare that you strike the right tone with industry and are able to mediate the different interests from early-stage companies that want certain things, to larger companies that want other things. What advice would you have for other people who are enrolled, similar to yours, that are thinking about bringing innovation to financial services and have to balance different policy concerns, different private interests, and what is the right way to build bridges with innovation and financial services?
Carlos Brandt:
Yeah, that's a great point to conclude our conversation here. So, as I said, the key message is one of co-operation really. Of course, we have to understand that the regulator, the central bank, has a particular objective with the system. And it has to be clear not only for the financial market, for the financial institutions and so on, but also for the whole society. We have to understand that the regulator and the central bank will act here to promote competition, to promote innovation, to deliver good service to the society. So, we are acting here as an agent of all the society in that ecosystem. Right. But we also have to understand that the PSPs, the payment service providers, they have a legitimate interest in and in providing services and having a specific group of clients that they want to attend. And of course, they have to make money out of it. So there has to be a clear business case for, for all the institutions.
We have to understand that the new players also need some, some kind of, let's say protection or at least to, to, to guarantee that they're going to provide payment services on an equal footing here, and not only with the same rules or the rules that are proportional for each type of institution, but allowing them to start providing the service. At the same time. So, time to market here is also important. So as long as all the stakeholders understand that there is a public. Objective being pursued. But at the same time the regulator is looking at the particular aspects of each participating institutions and so on. I think you build the necessary trust and confidence that you are really building a win-win game. Otherwise, they would be fighting for market share and with all the coordination, coordination challenges that might, might arise from a complex financial market like ours, they might end up investing a lot and not having the same final solution that really connects everyone to everyone.
Lex Sokolin:
Thank you so much for joining us today. It's a really inspiring story. If our listeners want to learn more about you or about the central Bank of Brazil or the world Bank, where should they go to really understand what's going on.
Carlos Brandt:
For the central Bank of Brazil, we have our web page: www.bcb.gov.br. We have a dedicated Pix page there with a lot of information on various aspects of Pix. So all the figures, statistics and so on. So welcome to visit our web page. If you want to follow us on our social media, we also talk about Pix a lot on social media. So, you can find us there too.
Harish Natarajan:
For the World Bank, Lex. We have a dedicated program on fast payments, and we curate all the information in a web repository which can be accessed at fastpayments.worldbank.org. So, you will find that a lot of case studies, including of Pix. But we also have a series of 15 other countries. Also, a lot of technical notes on specific aspects of implementation of fast payments, and then also a lot of recordings of prior engagements with other experts on this topic. So, I hope your audience will find them useful. Thank you.
Lex Sokolin:
Fantastic. Thank you again for joining us today.
Carlos Brandt:
Thank you.
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