Brazilian Central Bank Investigating Claims of Improper PIX Key Registrations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – PIX has not even begun operating yet, but it is already making headlines, this time with reports on social media and websites such as ‘Reclame Aqui’ (Consumer Complaints) of unsolicited registration of clients by banks and fintechs.

On Wednesday evening, October 14th, the Central Bank released a ranking of financial institutions that had the most PIX keys registered. Many of the institutions topping the list are targets of complaints.

On the ‘Reclame Aqui’ website, in a search for complaints about PIX keys, the financial institutions with the most mentions are MercadoPago (ranked second), C6, Nubank (ranked first), PagSeguro (ranked third), Bradesco (ranked fourth in the Central Bank’s list), and PicPay.

Most complaints point to the difficulty in canceling the registration of keys and claim that registration was performed without the customer’s consent. Others claim that the financial institution does not allow key portability, but portability will only be possible once the instant payment system is in force, on November 16th.

The complaints led the Central Bank to release a statement to the market in which it reports that it has initiated a formal inspection procedure.

“The Central Bank reports that it continuously monitors and supervises Pix key registration process,” says the monetary authority in its note issued on Thursday afternoon, October 15th.

“Should it detect irregularities in these processes (formal inspections), including any undue registrations, the Central Bank will punish offenders under the terms of the regulations in force,” adds the monetary authority.

Pix keys identify an instant payment account. When registering the information as a key, it will only be required to provide this data when receiving a payment. For instance, whoever registers an e-mail address as a key does not need to provide the account and taxpayer registry numbers when receiving a transfer. Providing the email address to the person who will make the payment is sufficient.

Why the registration of keys may be getting “pushed”

The market believes that each client will use two main keys to perform PIX transfers, most likely cell phone number and e-mail address. So, whoever is leading the registration of keys is more likely to have more main keys registered.

Having more keys registered means taking the lead in the race for a market worth around R$97 billion (US$19 billion). This is the amount that banks, card processors, and stores may not earn in the next five years from transfer fees, as PIX (which charges no fees) becomes popular.

That is why some banks are conditioning benefits to the choice of cell phones or e-mail addresses on the key used in the institution. Nubank has announced a raffle of up to R$50,000 for those who register their keys with the bank.

The Pan Bank has copied the strategy and increased the raffle to R$350,000. Santander guarantees ten days interest-free on the bank’s overdraft also for Pix instant payments.

Each user may have five Pix keys, linked to accounts they hold. Each key will be linked to an account and whenever someone enters the key as “recipient” in Pix, the money will be paid into this account. It will therefore be possible to register a cell phone number in a bank, an e-mail address in a fintech, and a CPF in a second bank for use in each platform.

Source: Exame

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