Colombia instant payment network sets records

Bre-B, Colombia's instant payment network is setting records one year in. Launched in October 2025, the Colombian system is now used by 83 percent of that country's adults, surpassing adoption numbers racked up by Brazil's Pix instant payment network. It took Pix almost three times as long to reach 83 percent penetration, according to an analysis by the financial technology platform EBANXh.

EBANX was among the firms advising Colombian authorities in rolling out Babel FishBre-B. It also had worked with Pix, which is said to be the second most used instant payment rail in the world. The most used rail is India's Unified Payments Interface.

Rapid adoption, rising transaction volumes

Bre-B has 36 million active users, 32 million of them individuals. There are about 40 million adults in Colombia, which is Latin America's third largest digital commerce market. Bre-B records more than 8 million transactions a day, triple the volume of its first month of operation. Since its launch, the accumulated value moved through Bre-B has reached nearly $80 billion.

"Adoption moves fast when a system is built to its users' needs, and that is exactly what happened in Colombia," said Sebastian Fantini, director of product at EBANX. "Bre-B connects payment methods and digital financial solutions that used to work in isolation, solving a real problem for Colombian consumers and businesses."

Colombia turned a set of closed systems into a single national network, taking a key lesson from Pix and making interoperability for instant transfers mandatory for every institution. It diverged from the Pix model, however, by connecting existing systems rather than building a new one from scratch.

"Bre-B took inspiration from Pix and adopted from the start what had already working in Brazil," Fantini said. "That head start, in a country that is smaller and less banked, pushed adoption and public trust further than its neighbor managed at the same stage."

Entry point for global merchants

By making Colombia's most popular digital payment methods interoperable, Bre-B has become an entry point for global merchants to reach cardless consumers in the country. The Financial Superintendence of Colombia estimates that just 24 percent of Colombian adults holds a credit card, which is less than a third of the 83 percent Bre-B penetration, EBANX wrote in an analysis.

"When a merchant moves from credit-card-only checkout to offering Bre-B, its potential customer base in Colombia more than triples," Fantini said. "All it takes is a single integration to get there. There is no marketing budget that produces that kind of reach."

One large online retail brand that made the move through a partnership with EBANX made Bre-B available to 5 percent of its customers in the initial rollout phase and saw an immediate 5 percent revenue lift and $300,000 in total payment volume, organically, in just three weeks.

Among consumers who chose to pay with Bre-B, 45 percent had never previously purchased from the retailer via EBANX, even though the retailer had offered cards and other local payment methods at checkout since partnering with EBANX in 2024, according to EBANX.

"Instant payment systems like Bre-B drive a kind of financial inclusion that benefits local ecommerce directly, because they bring in consumers who were not buying online at all," explained Fantini.

The Colombian digital commerce market is the third largest in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico. EBANX estimates put the Latin American digital commerce market at $59 billion and on track to reach $73 billion by 2028.

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