The Banco Central do Brasil formed a working group at the 28th PIX Forum Plenary on March 26 to develop rules against abusive messages sent through PIX transaction description fields. The group includes BCB staff and PIX arrangement participants. Concrete proposals are due by June 30, 2026.
Breno Lobo, deputy head of the BCB Competition and Financial Market Structure Department, presented six guiding principles. The framework requires user education on proper field usage. It mandates transparent disclosure of any filtering restrictions to payers before transaction completion. Solutions must be cost-proportional across payment service providers of all sizes. The working group will also define what constitutes a trivial transaction amount, the typical vehicle for abusive content, since the pattern involves nominal PIX transfers of a few cents where the description field carries intimidating or threatening text.
Financial institutions have reported growing customer complaints about abusive content received through PIX descriptions. The BCB will evaluate the working group's proposals after the June 30 deadline and may issue formal regulation. Any measures must balance platform safety with the operational demands of a system that processed 6.59 billion transactions in February 2026 alone.