ECB to assess feasibility of interlinking with Brazil instant payment system Pix

The European Central Bank has launched a formal assessment of linking the euro area’s instant payments infrastructure with Brazil’s Pix system, working with the Banco Central do Brasil to explore a bilateral interoperability solution. The initiative aims to enable near-instant, low-cost cross-border retail payments between the euro area and Brazil, improving remittance flows and business transactions. The effort sits within wider Eurosystem work on instant payments, cross-border efficiency and the digital euro agenda, and it seeks to determine whether technical, operational and policy conditions exist to proceed to testing or pilots.

The feasibility review will cover the practical specifics required for safe interlinking: technical interoperability (message formats, APIs and routing), settlement and liquidity management, foreign-exchange arrangements, legal and regulatory compatibility, AML/CFT and data protection measures, oversight and governance, and cyber-resilience arrangements. The ECB and Brazil’s central bank will use the study to identify risks, operational requirements and potential pilot designs; conclusions will determine whether to move to implementation steps. No operational link is being established today - this is a structured, multi-dimensional feasibility assessment to decide on next steps.