Brazil’s Central Bank Adds Auto-Block and Balance Floor to PIX Settlement Accounts

The upgrade gives banks a hard stop to contain suspicious outflows in Brazil’s real-time payment rails where completed transfers cannot be reversed.

Overview

Banco Central do Brasil, which announced the changes Tuesday, introduced tools that let banks react faster to suspected fraud in the instant payments system.
The new features let institutions set a minimum operational balance for their Conta PI so new PIX orders stop before funds drop below a safety floor.
Participants can opt in to an automatic block that freezes SPI settlement once that floor is hit, with a manual unlock when the bank deems it safe.
An alternative channel now provides access to Conta PI statements if the National Financial System network is down, including during internal failures or fraud attempts.
The Central Bank says the package is a structural upgrade that builds on 2025 monitoring and manual block tools, as media note the timing follows reports of a BTG Pactual hack that diverted about R$100 million and briefly halted its PIX.