Pix (Brazil's instant payment system, run by the Central Bank), SPEI (Mexico's interbank transfer system, run by Banxico) and Bre-B (Colombia's instant payment system, launched in 2025) are the Latin America payment rails that carry payouts for a company paying out of stablecoins. PSE (Colombia's online bank-transfer network) works in the other direction. In short: Brazil is Pix, Mexico is SPEI, Colombia is Bre-B (with a domestic bank transfer through ACH Colombia for invoices above the Bre-B cap), and PSE is for collecting.
Pix and Bre-B are described by their operators as running every day, and Banxico's guide describes Mexican bank channels as available 24 hours a day. The four differ on two things a payout team has to get right: which leg of a flow each rail can carry (PSE pulls, the others push, so a payout flow that treats it as a fourth option puts the wrong rail on the wrong leg), and what you must know about the recipient before the money can move.
Every figure below was read on October 29, 2026, from the operator or the regulator.
Which rails push money and which one pulls it?
Three of these rails push money and one pulls it. On Pix, SPEI and Bre-B, the payer instructs a transfer to an account the payer identified by a key or an 18-digit number. On PSE, the payer logs into their own bank and authorizes a debit from their own account, which ACH Colombia describes as a way to collect over the internet.
A payout is a push. A collection from a Colombian customer at checkout is a pull.
Every rail variant in one table
Rail variant | Identifier | Timing | Weekends | Hard ceiling |
Pix by key | Pix key (CPF, CNPJ, email, phone or random key) | Real time (Resolution BCB 1 of August 12, 2020) | Yes, every day | None set for company payers; R$1,000 overnight only between two individuals (Res BCB 142) |
SPEI | CLABE (also a 16-digit card or 10-digit phone tied to the account) | Banxico guide: not more than 30 seconds after approval | Bank channels 24 hours a day, every day (Banxico guide); Lumx's cut-off table lists SPEI as 24/7/365 | No figure published (checked October 29, 2026) |
Bre-B | Bre-B key or QR code | Seconds, per the Banco de la República | Yes, weekends and holidays included | 1,000 UVB per transaction, about COP 12.1M in 2026 |
Domestic bank transfer through ACH Colombia | Colombian bank account | Not stated in the sources read | Not stated in the sources read | No figure published (checked October 29, 2026) |
PSE (pull, not a payout) | None; the payer picks a bank and authorizes the debit | Not applicable to a payout | Not applicable to a payout | No figure published (checked October 29, 2026) |
What does a payout need on each rail?
Brazil addresses a recipient by a Pix key, Mexico by a CLABE (the 18-digit Mexican bank account number), Colombia by a Bre-B key. We cover how those rejections surface in why stablecoin payouts get rejected.
Recipient identifiers by rail
Rail | Recipient identifier | Notes |
Pix | Pix key: CPF (the Brazilian individual taxpayer ID), CNPJ (the Brazilian company taxpayer ID), email, phone or a random key | The Lumx API takes a key type and a key value. |
SPEI | CLABE, or a 16-digit debit card or 10-digit phone number tied to the account | Banxico's user guide lists all three. The Lumx API takes the CLABE. |
Bre-B | A Bre-B key: ID number, mobile number, random alphanumeric, email, or a merchant code for businesses | A recipient must have registered a key to receive. A sender needs only the key or a QR code. |
PSE | None for a payout. The payer picks their bank and authorizes the debit | Savings, checking or electronic-deposit accounts, per ACH Colombia. |
A Bre-B key attaches to exactly one account, though an account can hold several keys. The Banco de la República tells senders to check the masked name of the person before confirming, so a Bre-B payout flow should show the recipient name back to the payer.
I would not pick a rail before seeing the recipient list. Pix needs a key and SPEI needs a CLABE, so a list that holds names and emails only has to be completed before any rail can carry it. The rail is the easy part of the decision, and the data decides how soon the first payout can go out.
Settlement speed in practice
On paper, the three push rails are fast and equal: Pix is real-time (Resolution BCB 1), a SPEI payment should not take more than 30 seconds after approval (Notice 17/2010 no. 3.3(a), per Banxico's guide), and Bre-B arrives in seconds.
On our docs, the extra time comes from review and from the receiving bank, not from the rail. Our documentation lists what stretches a timeline: compliance review through an RFI (request for information, a compliance hold that asks for a document before a transaction clears), transfers above standard thresholds that may trigger an extra risk review, typically adding up to two business hours, and a receiving institution that holds funds for its own review. Lumx treats an off-ramp as complete once funds leave our banking partner, so what the recipient's bank does afterwards sits outside the rail.
Cut-offs are in payout limits and cut-offs by rail, and stablecoin versus traditional cross-border payments covers the correspondent-bank alternative.
What the recipient pays
Only the recipient's bank, not the rail operator, can charge the person being paid, and regulators draw that line differently in each country. Lumx deducts no fee from the amount the recipient receives on a Pix, SPEI or Bre-B payout.
Recipient-side fee rules by rail, from the primary source
Rail | Rule on the recipient | Source |
Pix | A bank may not charge an individual (sole proprietors included) to receive a transfer. It may charge a business to send and to receive, and an individual to receive a payment for a purchase. | Resolution BCB 19 of October 1, 2020, Articles 3 and 4, as amended by Resolution BCB 136 of September 2, 2021 |
SPEI | Banxico charges participants a fixed fee plus a fee per operation. What a bank charges its own customer is that bank's decision. | Banxico SPEI page |
Bre-B | Not confirmed from a primary source for this post. Ask the recipient's bank. | Banco de la República, Conozca Bre-B |
PSE | Not a payout rail, so no recipient fee applies to a payout. | ACH Colombia PSE site |
Limits, one row per rail
Limits split into the ceiling a rail or regulator sets, covered below, and the ceiling attached to the sending customer, covered in the limits post linked above.
Pix has an overnight rule: R$1,000 total between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM per account, with a 24-hour wait before a limit increase takes effect. It covers payments between two distinct individuals, sole proprietors excluded (Resolution BCB 142 of September 23, 2021, Article 2, which applies to Pix and the other payment arrangements in Article 2 §1), so it does not bind a company paying a contractor. Institutions set everything else.
SPEI shows no per-transaction figure in the Banxico material (checked October 29, 2026), and each bank sets its own limits. Mobile banking asks a payer to pre-register a beneficiary above 250 UDIS (Unidades de Inversión, a Mexican inflation-indexed unit whose peso value changes daily; not converted here). PSE shows no figure either, and the payer's bank sets its own.
Bre-B has a regulatory cap from the Banco de la República: 1,000 UVB (Unidad de Valor Básico, the unit of account the central bank uses for the cap) per transaction, about COP 12.1M in 2026. It binds every provider and every bank, though institutions may set a lower figure. As an illustration, a COP 30,000,000 supplier invoice is about 2.5 times the cap, so it cannot leave as one Bre-B transaction. Splitting it to get under the cap is not something we suggest, because split payments under a cap look like structuring to transaction monitoring and can trigger a compliance hold. Route large invoices through a bank-account transfer instead.
Can a payout be returned or reversed on each rail?
Pix has the most written down. A return of a Pix must be initiated within 90 days of the original transaction, and it presumes the recipient's account holds enough funds (Resolution BCB 1, regulation Article 41-A). The Special Return Mechanism (MED, Mecanismo Especial de Devolução) covers cases with a well-founded suspicion of fraud and cases of an operational failure in a participant's systems (Article 41-B).
For SPEI, Bre-B and PSE, the Banxico, Banco de la República and ACH Colombia pages read do not describe a return procedure, so this post does not state one (checked October 29, 2026). Do not assume the Pix rules carry over.
Which rail fits which scenario?
Rail choice by scenario
Scenario | Rail | Why |
Pay a contractor in Brazil who has a Pix key | Pix | A key is enough to address the payment, and individuals are not charged to receive a transfer. See the guide to sending USDC to Brazil, or USDC to BRL. |
Pay a Mexican supplier with a bank account | SPEI | A CLABE is the standard identifier, and Lumx's cut-off table lists SPEI as 24/7/365. Compliance holds can still apply. See USDC to MXN. |
Pay a Colombian supplier, invoice under about COP 12.1 million | Bre-B | Key or QR addressing, with seconds-level delivery. See USDC to COP. |
Pay a Colombian supplier, invoice above that | Domestic bank transfer through ACH Colombia | The Bre-B cap is per transaction, so a larger invoice goes by bank transfer instead. |
Collect from a Colombian customer at checkout | PSE | The payer authorizes a debit from their own bank. It is a pull. |
When a local rail is the wrong tool, and what about Argentina
A local rail cannot pay a recipient outside its own country. Pix does not reach a supplier in Shenzhen, and neither does SPEI. That payment is a USD wire over SWIFT, a different corridor (see what a stablecoin corridor is). With Lumx, a supplier in mainland China is paid in USD by SWIFT.
It is also the wrong choice when the amount does not fit, as with a Bre-B invoice over the cap, or when the recipient has no key and no account number to give you. In that case the work is collecting data, and no rail fixes that. Argentina has a rail too: the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) describes Transfers 3.0 as immediate transfers with online crediting in a maximum of 15 seconds, every day of the year. Transfers 3.0 is announced for Lumx, not live. For the regulatory side, see stablecoin regulation in Argentina.
What a Pix and SPEI payout looks like with Lumx
Lumx is stablecoin payments infrastructure for businesses that move money between Latin America and the rest of the world: one API to collect, hold, convert, and pay out in BRL, MXN, COP, USD, EUR, and GBP or in USDC and USDT, over local rails such as PIX, SPEI, PSE, Bre-B, ACH, FEDWIRE, SEPA, and Faster Payments, with SWIFT and on-behalf-of payments and collections (POBO and COBO) in USD, EUR, and GBP, plus named virtual accounts, custodial wallets, and KYB/KYC built in. SWIFT at Lumx is USD only.
A payout from a USDC balance to Brazil or Mexico is one off-ramp to a registered destination. The Pix destination carries a key type and a key value. The SPEI destination carries a CLABE. Every destination also carries a holder relationship, chosen from a closed list that includes SELF, SUPPLIER and EMPLOYEE. It is a compliance field. If a SELF destination carries a tax ID that differs from the customer's, the API rejects it with HOLDER_TAX_ID_MISMATCH, so the mismatch surfaces before any money moves. The off-ramp explainer walks through the statuses your team will see, from the stablecoin transfer to the fiat transfer to success or failed.
Limits attach to the customer. A KYB (know your business, the verification of a company and its owners) standard customer has a published ceiling of $50,000 per transaction and $100,000 per day, read from our transaction limits page on October 29, 2026, and each transaction type counts against its own limit. COP payouts run over Bre-B or ACH Colombia bank transfer, and PSE is used for collections. Check your rail pair on the coverage page and the providers by country on the operator map. See global payments for the legs of a flow and supported countries for where we onboard.
Our recommendation: use the local rail that matches the recipient's country and check the recipient data before you choose. If your payouts are domestic to one country and your recipients are individuals who already hold keys, a local bank or a domestic provider is the better pick, and we would say so. Lumx earns its place when one flow has to reach Brazil, Mexico and Colombia with one integration and one compliance layer. Your next step: list the recipient identifiers you hold per country (Pix key, CLABE, Bre-B key) against the identifier table above, and see which recipients are not ready to be paid.
Methodology and sources
Pix: Resolution BCB 1 of August 12, 2020 (definition of instant payment, 24-hour availability, returns in Articles 41-A and 41-B), Resolution BCB 19 of October 1, 2020 (fees, Articles 3 and 4), Resolution BCB 136 of September 2, 2021 (amends Resolution BCB 19) and Resolution BCB 142 of September 23, 2021 (overnight limit, Article 2; it covers the payment arrangements in Article 2 §1, not Pix alone). The public bcb.gov.br norm pages need JavaScript, so these links point to the Central Bank's normative-acts API, which returns the norm text, and the amendments are those the text itself records.
SPEI: the Banxico SPEI page (operator, participant fees) and the Banxico user guide (CLABE, card and phone identifiers, the 30-second maximum after approval from Notice 17/2010 no. 3.3(a), the 250 UDIS pre-registration rule). Bre-B: the Banco de la República's "Conozca Bre-B" page (keys, the 1,000 UVB cap, hours), cited without a link because it serves a captcha to automated readers; the peso figure is the cap converted at the 2026 UVB value and rounded to about COP 12.1M. The SPEI 24/7/365 claim is a Lumx fact, from our cut-off table, not a Banxico one. PSE: the PSE site run by ACH Colombia.
Lumx figures come from our public documentation, read October 29, 2026. Every figure carries a norm, article and date where one exists. Two claims are negative and were checked rather than assumed: the Banxico and ACH Colombia pages read state no per-transaction ceiling for SPEI or PSE, and none of the SPEI, Bre-B or PSE pages read describes a return procedure. If any of those get published, this post is out of date and gets corrected.
Verified on October 29, 2026. Operational context, not legal, tax, or investment advice.
Which payout rails does Latin America use?
Each country runs its own. Brazil uses Pix, Mexico uses SPEI and Colombia uses Bre-B for instant push payments, with PSE as a pull rail for online collections. Argentina has its own rail, Transfers 3.0, which is announced for Lumx, not live.
Is Bre-B limited per transaction?
Yes. The Banco de la República sets a maximum of 1,000 UVB per transaction, which is about COP 12.1M in 2026, and banks may set a lower figure. The cap applies to every provider.
Does the recipient pay to receive a Pix transfer?
An individual does not, under Resolution BCB 19 of October 1, 2020, as amended. A business can be charged by its bank, so a company recipient should check its fee schedule when a payment arrives short.
What details do I need to pay someone over SPEI?
An 18-digit CLABE is the standard, and it is the one Lumx destinations take. Banxico also lists a 16-digit debit card or a 10-digit phone number tied to the account.
