🍹 Colombian Pix and LatAm drinks

Brazil’s digital payment system gets another copycat. And the wine versus beer divide in Latin America

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Letícia Arcoverde & Lucas Berti
March 14, 2025 • Reading Time: 2 minutes

Hello, and welcome to the LatAm Report, your pulse on Latin America’s power plays and economics. If you have any questions about this newsletter, or topics you’d like to see covered in future issues, you can reach us at [email protected] 

Colombia is launching a Pix-like instant payment system 

Cash still accounts for almost 80% of transactions in Colombia. Photo: Nelson Hache/Shutterstock

Cash still accounts for almost 80% of transactions in Colombia. Photo: Nelson Hache/Shutterstock

Colombia is set to roll out a new digital payment system, Bre-B, designed to enable instant money transfers between banks and digital wallets for individuals and businesses. 

  • Modeled after Brazil’s widely adopted Pix system, which has revolutionized financial transactions since its launch in 2020, Bre-B is the latest effort by a Latin American nation to replicate that success.

State of play. Colombia's central bank said Bre-B (pronounced breve, or “brief” in Spanish) will be operational in September. Starting in June, users will be able to register an ID, phone number, email or other code to be used as a payment key. 

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