Brazil Central Bank tightens Pix controls

Brazil’s Central Bank has accelerated a series of measures in recent days to strengthen financial system security. The changes affect Pix, participants across the financial ecosystem, and the monitoring of threats tied to cryptoassets, in a package that also targets technology providers, credentials, and sensitive operating environments.

What changed in Pix?

The Central Bank is moving ahead with operational and technical changes to Pix to make fraud harder and help trace funds in suspicious transactions. Reported measures include the option to hold for up to 72 hours the funds from high-value transfers made overnight, along with an extra 60-minute window to review the transaction before the sending institution processes it, according to O Globo.

UOL also reported that, since August 10, banks have been tracking amounts transferred through Pix after a fraud alert. The same coverage said that, starting September 1, the deadline to contest an unauthorized transaction would rise from 30 to 80 days.

Finanças Guiada added another regulatory move. The Central Bank published Instrução Normativa BCB nº 769, which updates the Manual de Padrões para Iniciação do Pix and sets technical standards for payment initiation, effective as of publication.

How is supervision of the financial system tightening?

The Central Bank has also strengthened rules for financial system participants, with a focus on controls over technology providers, communication with the Rede do Sistema Financeiro Nacional, and the Pix and Reserve Transfer System environments. Estadão reported those changes and linked them to a broader push to improve defense against cyberattacks.

Estadão’s coverage also cited specific security measures, including multifactor authentication, environment isolation, and tighter control over credentials and private keys. Meanwhile, Gabriel Galípolo said at the opening of Febraban Tech, according to Valor, that the Central Bank had taken recent steps to improve financial system security.

What is happening with cryptoasset-linked threats?

The Central Bank is preparing an alert system for threats linked to cryptoassets, along with a monitoring and alert-sharing structure for that market, according to Valor. SpaceMoney added that the Central Bank itself acknowledged in a note that its existing tools were not designed to monitor the cryptocurrency market, which is why it moved ahead with a partnership to address that blind spot.

The move comes as the regulator tries to close visibility gaps in a segment that was not covered by its usual tools. Valor reported that the initiative is aimed at sharing alerts about threats related to cryptoassets, while SpaceMoney said the agreement with Hypernative was presented as a way to make up for that previous lack of monitoring.