Brazil's Central Bank has rolled out a new feature for Pix contactless payments that allows users to view their available account balance before a transaction is processed, with the capability built on the country's Open Finance infrastructure.
The update addresses a practical limitation of contactless Pix transactions, which function similarly to card payments but are declined when account funds are insufficient. The new balance-display function became available at the start of the week and is opt-in, meaning users must actively choose to enable it rather than having it applied by default.
How activation works
To use the feature, a user must connect a bank or payment account to a digital wallet, or authorise automatic transactions through Open Finance. These steps are completed within the app of the relevant financial institution. Once activated, the digital wallet application displays the user's available balance, transaction limit, and whether the intended Pix contactless payment can be completed, all before the transaction is initiated.
The feature follows a recent update to Brazil's Open Finance framework. Previously, the consent processes for sharing financial data such as account balances and credit limits, and for linking an account to a payment service, were handled separately. Under the revised framework, both procedures are combined into a single flow, which the Central Bank describes as an 'optimised journey'. When authorising payments through an account, users can simultaneously opt to share balance and limit information with the initiating institution or wallet provider.
The Central Bank has noted that the arrangement could serve as a foundation for further financial products and services beyond Pix contactless payments, though it stressed that all applications of shared data must be transparent and that the purpose of using client information must be clearly communicated.
Users who activate the feature retain the right to revoke their data-sharing consent at any time. The Central Bank has emphasised that enabling the balance preview remains entirely optional and is not a condition of using contactless Pix.
Context and timing
The introduction of the balance preview comes shortly after a separate regulatory decision that will remove the standard BRL 500 (USD 97) per-transaction limit on contactless Pix payments, a change set to take effect in October 2026. Together, the two developments point to a broader effort to align the contactless Pix experience more closely with that of traditional card payments, while expanding the informational and transactional capabilities available to users at the point of payment.
Pix, launched in November 2020, has become one of Brazil's most widely adopted payment methods, processing billions of transactions annually across retail, peer-to-peer, and business use cases. The integration of Open Finance data into the Pix contactless flow marks a step towards greater interoperability between payment initiation and account information services within the Brazilian financial ecosystem.
