Bre-B, PSE or Nequi: how to get paid in Colombia without losing sales

Colombia has just gained an instant payment system. Understand Bre-B, when it does not fit, and why PSE and Nequi remain indispensable.

Pagnovo Team · 2026-08-13

Colombia is the most fragmented payment market in Latin America — which makes it the one that punishes single-method checkouts hardest. In 2025 it got more interesting still: the country gained its own equivalent of Brazil's PIX.

Bre-B: the Colombian PIX

Bre-B is the interoperable instant payment system from the Banco de la República, Colombia's central bank. It went live in the second half of 2025 and reached full interoperability in October of that year.

If you know PIX, you will recognise the design immediately. Addressing works through llaves — keys — and there are five types:

• ID document number
• mobile phone number
• email address
• a randomly generated alphanumeric code
• merchant code, specific to businesses

Adoption followed the pattern the region already saw in Brazil: more than 100 million registered keys and hundreds of millions of transactions since full activation.

The limit that changes your collection architecture

Here is the detail that rarely makes it into English coverage: Bre-B caps transactions at 1,000 UVB. The 2026 UVB — basic value unit — is COP 12,110, putting the ceiling around COP 12.1 million, or roughly USD 3,000.

For consumer sales that is no bother. For B2B, high tickets or corporate invoices it matters a lot: above that value, Bre-B simply is not the route.

PSE: the established method

PSE (Proveedor de Servicios Electrónicos), operated by ACH Colombia, is the country's online bank debit and was the standard for internet purchases long before Bre-B.

The flow is a redirect: the customer picks their bank, leaves your store, authenticates inside their own bank, authorises and comes back. More friction than an instant payment, but a route Colombian consumers know and trust — and one without the Bre-B ceiling.

Nequi: the wallet that became a habit

Nequi, from Bancolombia, is the country's most widespread digital wallet, addressed by mobile number. Its strength is reach: individuals, informal commerce and people without a well-resolved traditional bank account.

Selling to consumers in Colombia without accepting Nequi means asking part of your audience to step outside the method they use every day.

How to choose — or rather, how to combine

The right question is not "which one to use" but "which one is missing". A simple guide:

Offering all four is not excess: it recognises that the Colombian market behaves differently depending on who is buying and how much it costs.

What to measure

Approval by method and by amount band. Same reasoning as any market, but in Colombia it surfaces faster: if you see a drop concentrated in one specific band, you are probably hitting the Bre-B ceiling without realising it.

The common mistake

Picking a method because it is the most modern. Bre-B is excellent and will keep growing — but it has a limit, and PSE has years of accumulated trust. One does not replace the other; they cover different situations.

Our Global Processing in Colombia accepts Bre-B, PSE, Nequi and bank transfer, settling in local currency, PIX or crypto. See also why accepting international cards is not enough or talk to our team.