Five years after Pix, TED is still preferred by companies with high-value operations |Finance

British Columbia does not distinguish between individuals and corporations, but data processed by Núclea shows that 85% of TEDs conducted in 2025 were conducted by businesses. This proportion remained stable at 83% in 2022 and 17% for individuals. Nuclea will process TEDs of up to R$1 million, while work above this amount will be carried out directly by BC.

Enterprise resistance to moving to Pix has more to do with technical and security factors than cost. “If we talk about transaction costs, the cost of TED is also already very low. For banks, the cost of TED is about R$0.01 to R$0.02. Pix is ​​0.1 cent, but when you talk about transactions worth thousands or millions of reais, this is ridiculous,” says Rodrigo Friato, Business Vice President at Núclea.

The problem is that moving operations to Pix requires updating legacy business management systems (ERP) that are not yet compatible, especially for larger companies. “Companies had a huge amount of reconciliation work and were ready to reconcile TED, DOC, checks, and invoices. Moving to Pix requires adapting their systems,” said Adriano Milani, head of financial services at Citi.

“(TED) is focused on large enterprises with very high-value transactions such as accounts payable and legacy systems, and it is not yet worth upgrading to Pix,” said Francisco Carvalho, director of product and information technology at Efí Bank.

Although Efí primarily serves small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we also analyzed data from our database to compare deals. On Pix, the average transfer amount is between R$ 90 and R$ 140, while with TED the value increases from R$ 15,000 to R$ 17,000.

For Fábio Montanari, CEO of Montanari Tecnologia, there are still barriers to governance. “Large companies have a lot to do with the ‘compliance’ issue of having processes that have a certain level of maturity to be able to make this transition, because these deals have such high value.”

Friart emphasizes that security is a key point, as Pix is ​​susceptible to human error. “Imagine a company sending millions of reais, and if the person inputting it makes a mistake, it goes to the wrong place,” he says. “With TED, it’s more complicated to attribute agencies, accounts, CNPJ, and everything else, but if the data is wrong, TED will come back.”

TED and Pix operate on different paths in BC and require technology updates. TED is processed in the Reserve Transfer System (STR), which is considered the core of the Brazilian Payments System (SPB). Pix runs on the Instant Payment System (SPI).

On the other hand, if migration is an additional cost to the company, it may reduce the expense of the BC itself, which currently has to maintain both infrastructures. Experts interviewed by Valor said B.C. would rather focus on Pix than also keep TED. BC did not comment when contacted.

In Efí’s Carvalho’s view, it’s only a matter of time before Pix surpasses TED in terms of funding. “Pix’s product life cycle is not yet over. Individuals no longer remember what TED is. Small and medium-sized businesses have a huge following, but the ‘corporate’ sector still uses TED heavily due to traditional accounts payable systems.”

Citi’s Milani emphasizes that while enterprise adoption of Pix is ​​already noticeable, the transition for large companies still using TED will only happen if they see some benefit in making the investment. It could be things like uninterrupted availability or the creation of an international Pix. “For companies that import and export, this could be even more transformative than it was for Pix.”

For Friart, the two styles will continue to coexist. He said TED remains an important part of Picus, not only because it is sought after by the market as an alternative payment method, but also as a natural contingency. “We believe these two payment methods will coexist for a long time.”