⚠ Pix Is Now Half of Brazilian TransactionsHigh threat
StoneCo (STNE) — threat to the moat
From 1 percent of Brazilian transactions in late 2020 to 52 percent by mid-2025 — an acquirer's revenue is a take rate on the share that has not migrated yet.
StoneCo's own annual report sets out the scale of what has happened to Brazilian payments. According to the Central Bank, Pix went from 1 percent of the total number of transactions in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 52 percent in the first half of 2025. By monetary volume it went from 1 percent to more than 26 percent1.
An acquirer earns a percentage of card volume. Pix moves money directly between accounts at essentially no cost, was built by the central bank rather than by an incumbent, and is being extended continuously — instalments, recurring payments, offline use. Every one of those extensions takes a use case that used to require a card.
The root threat on Pix argues the strategic question in full, and this page is narrower: it is about what the arithmetic does to the payments segment specifically. A business whose revenue is a take rate on card volume has to replace, every year, whatever share of transactions migrates to a free rail — and it has to do that while its take rate is also under competitive pressure.
StoneCo's answer is to accept the rail rather than fight it: it settles Pix QR-code volume through the same terminals and counts it in TPV, and it uses the merchant's Pix flow as underwriting data. That converts a revenue problem into a smaller revenue problem, not into an advantage.
Watch the take rate on total TPV rather than TPV itself. Volume that migrates from card to Pix still shows up in the volume figure. It does not show up in the same way in revenue.
- ReportedPer the Central Bank, Pix rose from 1% of the total number of Brazilian transactions in Q4 2020 to 52% in H1 2025, and from 1% to more than 26% of monetary volume.StoneCo Ltd. Form 20-F for FY2025 (CIK 1745431) — active payment clients of 4,803.5 thousand at 31 December 2025, against 4,172.7 thousand in 2024 and 3,522.1 thousand in 2023; TPV of R$560.9 billion, against R$516.2 billion and R$438.3 billion; revenue of R$14,153.8 million and adjusted net income from continuing operations of R$2,477.2 million; more than 3.6 million banking active clients, the majority of whom are also payment clients; retail deposits of R$11,091.0 million against R$8,704.8 million and R$6,119.5 million; a credit portfolio of R$2,836 million with expected credit losses of R$389.7 million, against R$1,207.6 million and R$144.5 million a year earlier; clients divided into MSMBs (micro-merchants and SMBs) and Key Accounts, 'comprised of platform services and sub-acquirers'; StoneCo became in 2017 the first non-banking entity authorised by the Central Bank to operate as an Acquirer through a payments-institution licence, and is among the six largest players by total card volume per ABECS; distribution through proprietary and franchised hubs sold on 'service differentiation as the main driver', digital channels, and more than 500 Strategic Partners at December 2025; per the Central Bank, Pix's share of the total number of transactions rose from 1% in Q4 2020 to 52% in H1 2025 and its share of monetary volume from 1% to more than 26%; the filing warns that 'the concentration of our clients by geography and economic sector may increase our risk' and that the company experiences churn from business closures and account transfers; interest rates directly affect both revenue generation and cost of funds, most third-party funding being linked to the Brazilian interbank rate; StoneCo's own analysis notes that US MSMB take rates have been stable over five years despite penetration around 120% of consumption, and finds no indication of saturation-driven price reductions in Brazilian cities with low cash usage — FY2025 · publ. 2026 · source ↗