Bexs Banco-Thunes Collaboration Brings Real-Time Payments to Brazil

Singapore-based global payments company Thunes has teamed up with Brazil-based international digital payments platform Bexs Banco to bring real-time payments to Brazil, the companies announced Wednesday (Dec. 1).

The partnership brings increased speed and transparency to inbound transactions for Brazilian recipients through Thunes, and the more than 112 million Pix users will receive instant payments and interoperability between Brazilian banks and FinTechs.

Pix was developed by Brazil’s Central Bank, and Pix’s contactless payment platform is behind more than 1 billion transactions every month — about nine out of every 10 bank transfers.

“We were the first payment provider in Brazil to integrate the Pix technology into cross-border transactions,” Luiz Henrique Didier Jr., CEO of Bexs, said in the joint announcement. “We now operate with Thunes, which processes payments for global players across multiple big techs, digital banks, and international remittance platforms.

“Through this integration, as an example, we provide faster payments to Airbnb hosts in Brazil from visiting renters who are sending their payment from another part of the world, and we hope further to increase Brazil’s overall trade relations with the world,” Didier continued. “With the connections we created, we shortened processes, making them faster and transactions, consequently, cheaper.”

Forecasts point to global cross-border transactions reaching $156 trillion in 2022, including about $150 trillion for business-to-business (B2B) transactions. Latin America is expected to take up a significantly larger share of this total in the coming year.

Thunes covers more than 16 countries across Latin America, including Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

“Brazil is a strategic market for Thunes,” Tamer El-Emary, chief operating officer at Thunes, said in the release. “It is home to a large population of creative and entrepreneurial talent, including freelancers, influencers, and gamers.

“Many of them are earning income out of the growing creator and gig economy platforms, and rightfully expect real-time payments and high quality of service. Our partnership with Bexs brings exactly that: faster and better payouts that can benefit millions of Brazilians.”

Related: Brazilian B2B BNPL Startup TruePay Grabs $32M in Series A Funding

Last month, Brazilian-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup TruePay announced the end of a Series A funding round that brought in $32 million, which the company plans to use primarily to hire more employees. TruePay says it has a client base “in the thousands” five months after its launch.