With the Iniciador de Pagamentos, Open Payments has arrived

Pix has truly won over Brazilians. In less than 18 months, the Pix scheme has overtaken the volume of transactions made with credit and debit cards.

That leap has pushed Brazil into the global Top 5 for real-time transactions. The product is growing so fast that volume rose nearly sixfold in 2021.

This shift is anchored in Open Finance — Brazil's open financial system, which lets users share data between financial institutions and companies and is making digital payments even more dynamic.

In this context, the concept of Open Payments emerges, and through the Payment Initiator (ITP), it arrives to make the customer experience even simpler.

What is a Payment Initiator?

The Pix Payment Initiator (ITP) is a new type of regulated institution that must be authorized by the BCB to initiate Pix payments on behalf of customers. Companies that become initiators can move money from one account to another at the user's request and with their consent.

The Payment Initiator (ITP) initiates the transaction, but does not participate in the movement of funds. In other words, it never takes custody of the user's money — it acts as an intermediary between consumer, financial institution, and merchant.

Another key point: the Payment Initiator (ITP) lets companies design a simpler payment journey for their customers — for example, kicking off transfers and payments without forcing the customer to open the bank app to send a Pix, copy and paste codes, or scan a QR Code.

How does it work in practice?

In practice, initiators shrink the payment journey from seven steps to three — a major process optimization. Today, the journey looks like this:

1. The user selects Pix as the payment method at the store.
2. They open a QR Code or copy the Pix code.
3. They have to manually open and log into the bank app.
4. Select the Pix option.
5. Pick the type of Pix.
6. Scan the QR Code or paste the code.
7. Confirm the transaction in the bank app.

With Payment Initiators (ITPs), the journey becomes radically simpler:

1. Choose the bank or fintech that will initiate the transaction.
2. Get redirected to the bank to log in.
3. Confirm the transaction with password, biometrics, or Face ID.

What are the benefits of Payment Initiators?

Built to redesign the payments system, payment initiation covers a wide range of use cases: e-commerce checkout, transfers through messaging apps, payments via messaging apps and social networks, in-app payments for services and subscriptions, payments in delivery, shopping, and mobility apps, and more.

The arrival of the Open Payments era also opens the door for a wide set of companies inside the financial system to take part — they can adopt the new product now and stay close to the changes reshaping the financial innovation market.

And what are the main challenges of becoming a Payment Initiator?

One of the first hurdles to operating payment initiation is meeting Open Finance and Pix scheme regulation. Several certifications are mandatory — including Financial-grade API (FAPI) Relying Parties from the OpenID Foundation, the international standards body behind Open Finance Brasil's security model, and the certifications specific to the payment initiation profile.

On top of that, because the framework is still new, you need to keep up with — and adapt to — every change or new regulation issued by the BCB. That monitoring extends to the technology used by authorized institutions.

There's also Open Finance API integration — APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) being the technology that lets a company access customer data and updates quickly and cleanly. These integrations are the backbone of how information flows between participants in the open financial system.

And there are still more layers to handle: a user-facing interface aligned with regulation, certification in the Open Finance Directory, certification in the Pix scheme, testing, production onboarding, and more.

The path to becoming a Payment Initiator (ITP)

To get your institution to market faster and participate in Open Finance under the Payment Initiation profile, you can rely on Iniciador — a software platform focused on Open Payments so your team can stay focused on the core business.

We specialize in Payment Initiation (ITP). Our platform's technology is certified by the OpenID Foundation and is compliant with BCB regulation, the Pix scheme rules, and the Open Finance Directory requirements. Want to know more? Talk to us.