Definition
Open Finance Brasil (formerly "Open Banking Brasil") is the regime for access to financial data and payment initiation set up by the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) from 2021 onward.
Renamed in 2022 to reflect its scope, it is today the most ambitious Open Finance regime in the world: accounts, credit, FX, investments, pensions and insurance — far beyond PSD2 or the original Open Banking UK. It is one of the main sources of inspiration for Europe's FIDA.
The 4 phases rolled out
- Institutional data (Feb. 2021): product catalogue, branches, fees — open without consent.
- Customer data (Aug. 2021): with consent, access to accounts, transactions, cards and credit (the AIS equivalent).
- Payment initiation (Feb. 2022): the PIS equivalent, with Pix as the main rail.
- Scope extension (since 2022): investment, FX, pensions, insurance, mortgage lending.
Why it is more advanced than PSD2
- Scope by design: conceived from the outset as Open Finance, with no separate FIDA-style regulation to wait for.
- Coupling with Pix: initiation builds on the already ultra-adopted instant rail, without the European PISP friction.
- A single standard: the BCB imposes one standard (data model, FAPI OAuth, ICP-Brasil certificates), much like OBIE in the UK.
Open Finance Brasil vs PSD2 vs FIDA
| Open Finance Brasil | PSD2 (EU) | FIDA (EU, planned) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Accounts + credit + investments + insurance + pensions + FX | Payment accounts | All of finance |
| Payment initiation | Yes (via Pix) | Yes (via SCT / SCT Inst) | No (stays with PSD) |
| API standard | A single one (BCB) | Multiple (STET, BG…) | To be defined |
| Regulator | BCB centralised | NCA + EBA | NCA + EBA |
| Adoption | ~62M consents (2025) | Variable | Not yet launched |
| Maturity | Very high, broad | Medium, narrow | To come (2027+) |
Governance
The BCB delegated operational governance to a dedicated structure (similar to OBL in the UK) that brings together the institutions, publishes the standards, and operates the participant Directory and the consent registry. This centralised but shared governance is one of the keys to Brazil's success.
What Open Finance Brasil is not
- Is not Pix: Pix is an instant payment rail; Open Finance Brasil is a regime for data access and initiation. They interlock without being one and the same.
- Is not the equivalent of FIDA: FIDA envisages private schemes per sector, whereas Open Finance Brasil is steered by the BCB.
- Is not mandatory for everyone at once: phasing by institution size, the largest first.
- Is not fixed: new phases and data types are added regularly.
In the global ecosystem
Along with Open Banking UK, Open Finance Brasil is the benchmark for any country building an Open Finance regime. Broad scope, coupling to an instant rail (Pix), centralised governance and phased rollout are patterns that FIDA, the US CFPB and several Asian central banks are watching closely.
Concrete examples
- Participating banks: Itaú, Bradesco, Santander Brasil, Banco do Brasil, Caixa, BTG Pactual on the traditional side; Nubank, Inter, C6 Bank, PicPay on the neobank side.
- Individual: from the Nubank app, a customer aggregates their Itaú and Bradesco accounts, compares personalised credit offers and initiates Pix payments — without leaving Nubank.
- Business: an SME connects its accounting to all its banks, accesses comparative credit in real time and initiates its supplier payments in Pix from its accounting software.
- Volumes: ~62M active consents in early 2025 (vs 43M a year earlier), ~42M unique customers, and ~2.3bn successful exchanges per week.
- European inspiration: FIDA's architects explicitly studied the model (Permission Dashboard, phased extension, shared governance).
- To watch: agentic banking (AI assistants operating accounts and payments), where the Open Finance Brasil + Pix combo gives Brazil a 2-to-3-year lead over Europe and the US.