The European Central Bank will examine connecting the eurozone's homegrown instant payments platform with Brazil's Pix, a move that would join two of the world's largest publicly run payment networks just as Washington has made the Brazilian system a target in its trade dispute with Brasília.

The ECB's Governing Council has approved a feasibility study on linking the Eurosystem's Target Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) platform with Pix, the central bank said in a statement. The assessment will be carried out in close collaboration with the Central Bank of Brazil and will examine the technical, operational, legal and business aspects of a potential connection.

Given the significant economic flows between the euro area and Brazil, the ECB said, connecting TIPS and Pix could make instant payments between the two regions faster and cheaper.

Pix is owned and operated by Brazil's central bank. It processes around 250mn real-time payments a day, and transactions settle directly in central bank money.

That public model has brought it into conflict with the administration of US President Donald Trump. Pix was among the practices examined in a Section 301 investigation opened by the Office of the US Trade Representative in July 2025. The probe also covered illegal deforestation, access to Brazil's ethanol market, intellectual property enforcement and anti-corruption measures. Critics say it was aimed at President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who seeks a fourth term in next month's presidential election. Washington's original settlement proposals included demands that political dissidents not be barred from the race, according to Estadão, although a White House official said Section 301 would not be used for political ends. It ended in July this year when Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Brazilian imports.

A senior White House official said at the time that Washington was not seeking to abolish Pix but wanted a level playing field for American companies. "What we don't want is a situation where US companies are forced to advertise Pix or are restricted by Pix, and Pix receives special treatment," the official said, according to Brazilian press reports. The official also objected that Brazil's central bank acts as both regulator and operator of the system.

Brasília has not budged. Gabriel Galípolo, the central bank's president, said in August 2025 that Pix would remain public infrastructure because it guarantees neutrality. "The fact that Pix remains public infrastructure within the central bank turns it into a kind of highway where anyone can drive, as long as they follow the rules of the road," he said, as reported by Reuters. Finance Minister Dario Durigan warned in June that a US proposal to designate the Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho gangs as terrorist organisations could expose Brazilian institutions to sanctions and create risks for Pix. Brazil has since opened consultations with the US at the World Trade Organization.

Brazil is not the only country whose domestic payment rails have drawn fire from Washington. The US has argued that Indonesia's QRIS system and national payment gateway disadvantage foreign card networks. Bank Indonesia's senior deputy governor, Destry Damayanti, countered that Visa and Mastercard remain dominant in the country and face no operational restrictions.

This pressure makes cooperation between payment systems outside US control more valuable, since reliance on American networks leaves countries exposed to the whims of successive administrations in Washington. Direct links between central bank-run platforms give users a cross-border channel that does not depend on US card schemes or on correspondent banking networks that clear through dollar intermediaries. They also turn national payment systems into exportable infrastructure. India has been the most assertive practitioner. It has built bilateral QR payment links with Singapore, the UAE, Mauritius, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and France, and in June the Reserve Bank of India signed a memorandum of understanding with the State Bank of Vietnam. That agreement provides for real-time transactions with upfront charges and costs designed to undercut conventional correspondent banking.

A more politically charged effort is under way within the BRICS group. The bloc has been developing BRICS Pay, a settlement system intended to let members trade outside the dollar. Russia and Iran, both full members, are subject to sweeping US sanctions, and Cuba, a BRICS partner country, has cast its bid for full membership as a way out from under American economic pressure. Moscow regards its digital rouble, opened to retail customers earlier this month, as a building block for the project. Brussels took that threat seriously enough to write a ban on the digital rouble into its 20th sanctions package. Yet BRICS Pay remains years from working, IntelliNews reported last month, and the enlarged bloc agrees on little beyond a dislike of dollar dependence.

Brazil has trodden carefully. During its BRICS presidency last year it shelved talk of a common currency and focused on easing payments in members' own currencies, according to government officials. Trump had threatened 100% tariffs on any country that tried to displace the dollar. Lula has nonetheless insisted that members have "the right to discuss establishing forms of trade that do not make us fully dependent" on the US currency. The Eurosystem's links sit on different foundations, grounded in the G20 roadmap rather than any effort to circumvent sanctions.

Still, Europe is now building alternative links of its own. The Pix study is part of a wider Eurosystem effort to connect TIPS with fast payment systems around the world. The effort supports a G20 roadmap for a faster, cheaper, more transparent and more accessible global payments system, while keeping instant payments secure and reliable.

Other initiatives include joining Nexus Global Payments, a multilateral network of instant payment systems originally launched by the Bank for International Settlements.

The Eurosystem is also pursuing bilateral links with India's Unified Payments Interface and Switzerland's Swiss Interbank Clearing Instant Payments system.

The ECB said the work was in line with the Eurosystem's comprehensive payments strategy, which aims to further integrate global cross-border payments by improving existing infrastructure.