Banco Central introduces new anti-fraud measures for Pix

The Central Bank of Brazil has released its second Pix Management Report, outlining advancements in the payment ecosystem and a new security agenda to combat fraud. The institution plans to implement eight specific measures to enhance transaction safety.

Key initiatives include the creation of objective minimum criteria to identify suspicious transactions, moving away from the current heterogeneous policies used by individual banks. The Central Bank also intends to develop a real-time 'Pix fraud probability' indicator using machine learning models. This AI-driven tool will be made available to participating institutions to bolster their internal anti-fraud systems.

Other planned improvements involve standardizing fraud alerts across all financial institutions and optimizing the information flow for the precautionary blocking of suspicious transactions. To protect users, the Central Bank emphasizes the importance of verifying recipient details—such as name, institution, and tax ID (CPF/CNPJ)—before confirming payments. In the event of a scam, users are encouraged to immediately trigger the Special Refund Mechanism (MED).