Brazil’s financial sector is one of the world’s most dynamic fintech ecosystems, as well as one of its most complex. Over the past two decades, the Brazilian market has evolved from a landscape dominated by legacy banks into a vibrant laboratory for digital-first financial products.
Today, over 70% of Brazilians use digital banking services, and fintechs represent nearly half of all new financial licenses issued by the Central Bank. These shifts have unlocked an environment where startups, traditional institutions, and global players are converging around a shared goal: expanding financial access while keeping risk and compliance in check.
In this article, we explore the themes shaping Brazil’s financial services frontier—fraud prevention, payroll loans, and embedded finance—and spotlight 25 innovators redefining the country’s financial landscape in 2025.
Brazil’s core innovation drivers in 2025: Fraud, payroll loans, and embedded finance
As Brazil’s fintech market matures, three innovation arenas stand out for their scale, impact, and potential to reshape the country’s financial future:
1. Fraud: From detection to prediction in Brazil’s digital economy
Launched by the Central Bank in 2020, Pix is Brazil’s instant payments system that allows money to move between accounts in seconds, 24/7. It has revolutionized digital payments and become a cornerstone of the country’s financial inclusion strategy.
In this transformation, however, fraud remains one of Brazil’s most persistent challenges. With Pix processing more than 4 billion transactions monthly, fraud attempts have surged alongside legitimate activity, driving demand for smarter, faster detection systems.
As a result, fraud has become one of the country’s greatest catalysts for innovation. A new generation of players is using AI, blockchain, and behavioral intelligence to anticipate fraud before it happens. By leveraging these technologies in smarter, more connected ways, fintechs are turning what was once a defensive function into a strategic advantage.
What began as informal, community-driven coordination - such as WhatsApp groups where teams shared suspicious IDs or flagged fraud attempts in real time - has evolved into a more sophisticated, data-driven network of collaboration across institutions. By integrating third-party data, machine learning models, and real-time monitoring into unified systems, financial institutions can protect legitimate customers without slowing down their journey.
This new level of connectivity is helping players build trust, operate more efficiently, and stand out in an increasingly crowded market. Fraud prevention is no longer just about protection, but performance.
Standout innovators:
- ASAAS: Focused on SMBs, ASAAS automates billing, payments, and credit workflows. By centralizing back-office financial operations, it helps small businesses maintain clean, verifiable data trails - reducing exposure to fraud and error.
- CloudWalk: This São Paulo-based fintech is reinventing merchant payments using blockchain and AI to deliver instant, low-fee transactions. Its transparent ledger approach offers a powerful counter to fraud in payment processing, and with a recent R$ 4.2 billion debt facility - the largest FIDC of 2025 - it’s expanding credit access for thousands of small and midsize merchants across Brazil.
- Zoop: As the financial arm of iFood, Zoop powers the company’s embedded payments and banking infrastructure, enabling merchants on the platform to access digital accounts, cards, and financing. Its APIs deliver secure, fraud-resistant Pix and card integrations at scale, demonstrating how leading platforms are turning fintech infrastructure into a competitive advantage.
2. Payroll loans: The digital reinvention of Brazil’s credit backbone
In 2025, payroll-deducted credit (crédito consignado) has become one of Brazil’s fastest-growing lending categories.This model, where loan payments are automatically deducted from salaries or benefits, reduces default risk and allows lenders to offer lower interest rates.
According to Brazil’s Ministry of Labor, the government-backed “Crédito do Trabalhador” program has already migrated more than R$15.7 billion in legacy consignado loans, broadening financial inclusion for millions of formal workers.
Digital channels now account for more than 80% of new personal loan originations in Brazil, and fintech participation in the consignado segment continues to rise as regulation opens space for non-bank lenders. Banks and fintechs are reinventing how payroll loans are originated, underwritten, and managed, using digital onboarding, real-time payroll integrations, and data-driven risk models to make the process faster, safer, and more inclusive.
The consignado revolution showcases how technology-enabled underwriting and dynamic decision platforms can empower lenders to safely expand access. By connecting real-time employment and payroll data with advanced risk models, institutions can approve more customers faster without increasing risk exposure.
Standout innovators:
- Creditas: Known for its asset-backed lending, Creditas now offers Crédito do Trabalhador, providing fully digital payroll loans to CLT employees. Its platform exemplifies the use of alternative data for personalized risk pricing.
- Inter: One of Brazil’s first digital banks to offer fully online INSS and CLT payroll loans, Inter is extending its model globally, combining seamless contracting with data-rich risk management.
- Jeitto: Originally a mobile credit provider, Jeitto has expanded into payroll-linked lending to offer lower-interest financing options, bringing responsible credit access to lower-income segments.
- PicPay: A household name in Brazil, PicPay now operates as a digital marketplace for INSS and public payroll loans, connecting borrowers directly to top-tier financial institutions through an intuitive digital interface.
3. Embedded finance: How Brazil is turning financial access into an ecosystem advantage
Embedded finance, or the integration of financial services into non-financial platforms, has been a defining fintech trend for years.
But in 2025, it’s entering a new phase of maturity in Brazil where embedded finance isn’t only about offering loans or payments inside an app. Rather, embedded finance is about enabling transactions, lending, and risk assessment to happen seamlessly within other digital experiences.
Powered by Pix, open finance regulations, and flexible risk infrastructure, Brazil has become a global benchmark for interoperability. This has unlocked the ability for platforms across industries, from retail and logistics to energy and entertainment, to embed finance in ways that create real economic impact.
This evolution underscores how embedded finance has evolved beyond a product to become an operating model. By giving risk teams no-code tools, unified data access, and AI-powered decisioning, it becomes possible for companies to launch and optimize financial offerings directly inside their ecosystems. In doing so, financial inclusion becomes a built-in feature, not an afterthought.
Standout innovators:
- EBANX: This global payments leader offers localized checkout experiences across Latin America, embedding cross-border financial services into global e-commerce flows.
- Olist: By connecting small retailers to multiple marketplaces, Olist embeds financial and logistics tools that simplify operations and unlock new credit access.
- StoneCo: Once a payment processor, StoneCo now provides an all-in-one platform for SMBs to manage payments, working capital, and analytics—bridging the gap between commerce and credit.
- UME: A Pix-native credit and payment network, UME lets retailers offer flexible installment plans both in-store and online, an example of embedded finance driving real-economy growth.
The 25 innovators to watch
In 2025, Brazil’s financial innovation story has entered a new era. After years of groundwork with open finance regulation, the rise of Pix, and digital credit modernization, the market has reached a tipping point where technology, policy, and consumer behavior are finally aligned.
What’s changing now is the scale and speed of innovation. The new generation of fintechs isn’t just building products; they’re redefining entire business models around smarter risk infrastructure, inclusive lending, and embedded financial access.
To spotlight the companies leading this transformation, we’ve compiled Taktile’s Top 25 Innovators of 2025. Across these 25 innovators, we are seeing three powerful themes: fraud prevention, credit modernization, and embedded finance define the next era of Brazilian fintech.
Together, they represent four layers of innovation: the digital banks leading financial access, the lenders reinventing credit, the infrastructure builders powering secure payments, and the platforms embedding finance into everyday life.
Banks and super-apps: Customer-facing innovators
- Agibank: A digital-first bank and INSS loan specialist modernizing payroll credit through omnichannel distribution.
- BMG: A veteran in benefit cards and INSS credit, BMG continues to digitize customer experiences while maintaining its strong correspondent network.
- Bradesco: One of Brazil’s largest banks, leveraging digital onboarding and AI-powered customer service (Bia) to modernize payroll and retail lending.
- C6 Bank: A cloud-native, mobile-only bank offering global accounts, cards, and data-driven credit, with rapid growth among younger consumers.
- Inter: A fully digital bank offering INSS and CLT consignado, digital investments, and cross-border banking for Brazilian customers abroad.
- Neon: A pioneer in real-time, data-driven credit onboarding, serving Brazil’s underbanked through instant payroll lending.
- Nubank: Latin America’s largest digital bank, reimagining retail banking with a mobile-first, fee-free model that has brought over 100 million users into the formal financial system.
- PicPay: A super-app bridging payments, savings, and payroll loans, now integrated with top banks to expand inclusion.
- Will Bank: Democratizing access to credit cards and personal loans with a mobile-first, inclusive model.
Credit and lending innovators: Modern credit originators using payroll or alternative data
- RecargaPay: Evolving from a payments app into a credit platform, RecargaPay is expanding into payroll-linked and SME lending.
- Creditas: A leading consumer lender leveraging assets and payroll data to offer personalized, lower-cost credit products.
- Jeitto: A credit-focused fintech enabling salary-deducted loans for consumers previously excluded from traditional credit systems.
- Solfácil: Brazil’s first green-energy lending platform, financing residential and commercial solar projects at scale.
- Midway: The retail-linked fintech integrating credit, insurance, and e-commerce financing to power consumer loyalty.
- Daycoval: A specialist bank combining INSS operations with small business credit, known for disciplined risk management.
Payments and infrastructure builders: Institutions powering fraud prevention, Pix, APIs, and merchant services
- ASAAS: Simplifies SMB financial operations by combining billing, payments, and credit automation into one hub.
- CloudWalk: A blockchain-powered network delivering instant, low-fee payment processing for merchants across Brazil.
- EBANX: Enables cross-border payments for global merchants, expanding access to Latin American consumers.
- PagBank: Transformed POS devices into super-apps, merging digital banking, payments, and financial management.
- StoneCo: An SMB powerhouse offering integrated payments, banking, and credit, redefining how small businesses handle finances.
- UME: A Pix-native network that brings installment payments and credit directly into retail environments.
- Zoop: A finance-as-a-service provider powering embedded payments and digital accounts through its API platform.
Embedded finance platforms: Ecosystem enablers embedding finance into other industries
- Cora: A digital B2B neobank built for SMBs, offering cash flow automation, Pix payments, and business credit solutions.
- Olist: Empowers small retailers with multichannel sales, financing, and logistics tools.
- Zig: Enables cashless payments and ticketing for live events through a unified wallet and POS solution.
The future of financial innovation in Brazil
As we look to the next frontier, it’s clear that Brazil’s financial innovators are laying the groundwork for globally competitive, data-driven services. The convergence of flexible risk infrastructure, open finance, and AI-driven decisions is creating a powerful foundation for sustainable growth.
At Taktile, we believe the next wave of success will belong to institutions that can combine speed, transparency, and experimentation in their decision strategies. The ability to test, adapt, and optimize credit and fraud models in real time will define the market leaders of the next decade.
Brazil’s fintech ecosystem has proven one thing: when innovation meets inclusion, the results are transformative. The Top 25 of 2025 are not just reshaping financial services. They’re setting the stage for a smarter, more connected, and more equitable financial future.
