The silent payment revolution has just gained a new chapter: Automatic Pix, which was officially launched and starts operating on June 16th. With it, a thesis we have defended since its announcement has finally been confirmed: it didn’t come to kill the boleto, but rather to replace the old and problematic automatic debit.
The distinction matters. For over two decades, automatic debit was an unresolved promise of convenience. In theory, it would allow bills like electricity, water, gas, phone, or subscriptions to be paid with a simple click—or none at all. But in practice, it never came close to becoming a mass payment method. Only 11% of utility consumers used automatic debit, and in lower-income segments, the rate is even lower.
The reasons aren’t hard to understand: trust in the billing company has always been low. Consumers have experienced countless negative incidents with improper charges, difficult cancellations, and lack of transparency in debited amounts. The effect of these experiences isn’t limited to one sector: someone who had an issue with a phone carrier, for example, tends to carry this distrust to other services. This helps explain why so many avoid putting even essential bills, like electricity and water, on automatic debit. Add to this the so-called marginal propensity to consume of 1-to-1, where everything earned is spent, requiring users to have autonomy to decide month by month what can or cannot be paid. Automatic debit never served this reality well.
That’s why, since Pix was launched in 2020, many experts, including us, argued that a recurring payment feature would be the final blow to automatic debit—not the boleto, as many imagined. It would allow scheduling regular payments with more control, more transparency, and, most importantly, more interoperability between payer and payee. On the 4th, during the Conexão Pix event held in São Paulo by the Central Bank, this thesis became reality.
The participation of companies like GloboPlay, Amazon, OLX, and Mercado Pago among the first to adopt Automatic Pix reveals the leadership of e-commerce in this new phase of payments. For utilities, there are expectations of growth in automatic payments with Pix, but sector analysts estimate this increase shouldn’t exceed 5%. Most consumers still prefer the boleto, reinforcing the structural limits still present in this segment.
The model solves what was perhaps the market’s biggest pain: integration between billers and receivers. Traditional automatic debit depends on agreements with banks, imposing high costs and little flexibility. Automatic Pix is, by design, more democratic: consumers just need to authorize the recurrence. This changes the logic of new players entering the ecosystem and accelerates the digitalization of sectors previously hindered by analog infrastructure.
As Gabriel Galípolo, president of the Central Bank, stated: “Pix is money that moves at the speed of our time”, this new phase of Pix could do for recurring payments what the first wave did for instant transfers: universalize them.
The confirmation of this thesis is symbolic for those tracking the evolution of Brazil’s financial system. The boleto, with all its issues, still fulfills a critical function of reminder and control. Automatic debit, on the other hand, got stuck halfway: not as transparent as the boleto nor as convenient as Pix promises to be.
And for those who doubt the speed of this transformation, remember: Pix took less than four years to reach 160 million users. Automatic Pix inherits this user base and now has everything to become the new standard for automatic payments in Brazil. It’s gratifying to see this vision solidify before our eyes, especially in e-commerce. Automatic Pix isn’t just a functional innovation. It’s the victory of a fairer, simpler, and more aligned model with Brazilian consumer behavior.
*Vinicius Santos, founder and CEO of Conta Comigo Digital. Graduated in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Vinicius also holds a degree in Philosophy from Sorbonne University in Paris (FR). Currently founder and CEO of fintech Conta Comigo Digital, he has held leadership roles in companies like Navii.co, focused on the maritime sector, and Acordo Aéreo, a platform helping consumers claim compensation from airlines.
