Pago Móvil overtakes card terminals in Venezuela
Since mid-2025, mobile payment transactions have outnumbered card terminal transactions every month. Brazil, Mexico and Colombia show where instant payments are heading and what they demand of the companies that collect through them.
Executive summary
Based on BCV data, Pago Móvil accounted for 38.3% of banking transactions by channel in 2025, almost level with card terminals, and for 41.1% in the first half of 2026. It has exceeded card terminals every month since July 2025 (own calculations).
Brazil shows the scale that is possible. Pix, launched in November 2020, processed close to 80,000 million transactions in 2025, and in December it was used by 148 million people and 12 million companies.
In Mexico, SPEI recorded 7,308 million transfers in 2025, 36.8% more than in 2024, and in the last quarter of the year 81% of people over 15 used it. Colombia launched Bre-B in October 2025 and passed 670 million transactions within six months.
For companies, the shift moves work into reconciliation. Each payment arrives as an individual transfer with its own reference, instead of being grouped into the card terminal's end-of-day batch.
Context
Venezuela reached this transition by its own route. Pago Móvil, which covers person-to-person, person-to-business and business-to-person payments, grew while card terminals lost share, and it is now the channel with the most transactions in the system.
Elsewhere in the region, central banks promoted public instant payment systems that run every day and around the clock. The result is a volume of individual payments that requires automated reconciliation.
Figure 1 · Share of each channel in banking transactions in Venezuela
Table 1 · Instant payment systems in four countries
| System | Country | Transactions | Users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pix | Brazil | 79,800 million in 2025 | 148 million people and 12 million companies (Dec 2025) |
| SPEI | Mexico | 7,308 million in 2025 | 82.9 million people (Q4 2025) |
| Bre-B | Colombia | Over 670 million (Oct 2025 to Apr 2026) | Over 34 million registered users |
| Pago Móvil | Venezuela | 5,392 million in 2025 | Not published |
Business implications
Automate the reconciliation of instant payments. With Pago Móvil ahead of card terminals, checking references by hand does not scale. Automated reconciliation against sales and receivables reduces errors and shortens the close.
Keep each payment's data on a clear legal basis. Reference, bank, date, time and amount make it possible to analyse sales by hour, channel and customer. If a payer identifier is kept, its processing must comply with each country's data law.
Compare the total cost of collection by channel. The fee is only one part. Reconciliation time, disputes and settlement delay also count, and they change when collection moves from cards to transfers.
Methodology & data
Shares, growth rates and monthly comparisons calculated from the BCV table of transactions by channel, with provisional figures up to June 2026. Figures for Brazil, Mexico and Colombia come from the reports and press releases of their central banks.
The systems measure different things, such as total transactions, transfers or registrations; the table indicates scale and does not support exact comparisons.
References
Central Bank of Venezuela. Operaciones por canal transaccional: volumen (updated 10 September 2026). · Central Bank of Brazil (August 2026). Relatório de Gestão do Pix 2023-2025. · Bank of Mexico (11 September 2026). Informe anual sobre las infraestructuras de los mercados financieros 2025. · Bank of Mexico (2025). Informe anual sobre las infraestructuras de los mercados financieros 2024. · Banco de la República (April 2026). Press release on Bre-B's first six months of operation. · Bank for International Settlements (March 2025). Fast payments and financial inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean, BIS Papers 153.