While the Brazilian consumer sees the ease of paying with a QR code or a tap on the cellphone, there is a structural change happening behind the scenes of the financial industry. A silent yet radical transition is underway: the migration from a model based on private networks and percentage fees per transaction to a new infrastructure logic that is open, interoperable, and instant.
At the center of this transition is Pix. But the impact is not just technological or operational but rather strategic because it alters the balance of power throughout the payment chain, especially in the role of flag operators.
The gears of the flags
To understand what is at stake, it is necessary to understand the traditional architecture of payments made with a card. Every time a purchase is made with a physical or virtual card, various chain payment actors come into play:
- The cardholder who makes the payment;
- The commercial establishment that receives;
- The acquirer who processes the transaction (such as Cielo and Stone);
- The issuer, usually a bank, who issued the card;
- The flag (Visa, Mastercard, and others) that connects all points.
The flag does not issue cards or process transactions directly. Its function is to orchestrate the network: define interoperability rules, ensure financial settlement among participants, and maintain the infrastructure that allows a card issued anywhere in the world to work anywhere it is accepted.
For this purpose, each transaction generates a series of fees distributed along the chain. Among them:
- Interchange fee: from the merchant to the issuer;
- MDR (Merchant Discount Rate): commission paid to the acquirer;
- Assessment fee: direct remuneration from the network;
- Other ancillary fees: anti-fraud, clearing, settlement, etc.
It is a sophisticated, convenient, and efficient model, but also expensive and not so transparent, especially for the end of the chain, which is the consumer holding the card.
The disruption brought by Pix and the challenge as sovereignty
Pix simplifies this model drastically because with it, the payer starts the transaction directly in their bank’s app, the payee receives the amount in seconds, there are no intermediaries like acquirers or networks, and settlement occurs in real time between bank accounts via the Central Bank’s infrastructure.
Pix is just the tip of the iceberg of a financial architecture designed with technical rigor, institutional coordination, and long-term vision.
It works because it was designed as a platform, not as a product, allowing banks, fintechs, and even companies to create value on top of it. And it operates in real-time, 24/7, with virtually zero marginal cost. This is not a subsidy; it is an advanced vision of financial engineering.
The result? A deep cut in the margins of traditional networks where each transaction that migrates from the card to be carried out via Pix represents an operation that no longer goes through the gears of the networks and their partners.
Therefore, there is less revenue from interchange, less reliance on issuers, and less volume for acquirers.
Furthermore, with the advancement of solutions such as Scheduled Pix, Guaranteed Pix, and payment initiation APIs, even the typical functions of credit cards are beginning to be replicated outside the traditional logic of the card.
What does this mean for the market?
The impact is not trivial. Traditional infrastructure was built for a world where settlement happened at a slower pace, risk was high, and interoperability was difficult. The card networks solved this issue by creating global, reliable, and scalable networks and were widely successful in this mission.
But the context has changed.
With the modernization of banking systems, the advancement of cloud computing, open finance, and pro-competitive regulation, it is now possible to replicate much of the functionality of the card networks with lighter, cheaper, and open structures.
And this change is accelerated by the data itself:
- Over 160 million Brazilians already use Pix;
- It has surpassed debit and credit cards in transaction volume in many segments;
- New players (such as fintechs and platforms) are choosing Pix as the standard, not as an alternative.
Does this mean the end of card networks?
No, but it means that their role is being redefined. Card networks are still essential for certain actions, such as: international transactions, loyalty programs, revolving credit, operations in markets with low banking interoperability, and use cases where risk needs to be absorbed by multiple parties.
But their central and mandatory position in the payment chain is being challenged. This requires a reinvention of models, not only commercial, but mainly of technological infrastructure.
The dispute for the invisible layer
Flags still maintain dominance in areas like installment, international credit, and loyalty networks. But that’s changing too. Scheduled Pix begins to compete with installment payments. Open APIs allow fintechs to replicate reward logic. Financial intermediation is being reprogrammed line by line.
And the more governments and companies understand that financial infrastructure is a matter of sovereignty and economic efficiency, the more we will see local alternatives replacing bloated global models built on decades of rent-seeking.
At the end of the day, it’s not about a battle between public and private, but between old and new. Between closed architecture and interoperable platforms. Every time a new transaction occurs through Pix, a piece of the old order dissolves into code.
What is at stake is who occupies the invisible layer that moves the money, which for decades was dominated by large global private networks. Now, we are beginning to see that it’s possible to build more open, interoperable, and efficient alternatives.
And perhaps this is the greatest legacy of Pix: not only proving that innovation in infrastructure is possible, but that it can generate inclusion, efficiency, and scale when designed with clear architectural clarity and a focus on interoperability.
The new dispute is over this layer. Whoever defines the standards, defines the future. And every transaction that bypasses a card and occurs in an open system is, quietly, a piece of this new infrastructure taking shape.
