Earlier this month, Thunes launched real-time cross-border payments to and from Colombia via Bre-B, the country’s new national instant payment system operated by Banco de la República, Colombia’s Central Bank.
This marked a major milestone for Colombia, enabling individuals and businesses to send and receive money instantly, 24/7, between accounts held at different banks, cooperatives, digital wallets, and fintechs.
Since its launch, 30 million people, representing 76% of the country’s adult population, have already signed up to the service. Chloe Mayenobe, President and COO at Thunes, praised the move:
“We greatly value the vision and leadership of central banks, like Colombia’s, that are driving innovations to make financial systems more inclusive and interoperable. Together with Bre-B, we’re helping to power Colombia’s participation in the real-time global economy and set a new benchmark for interoperable payments in the region.”
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This launch is about more than just global connectivity. For Colombia, it marks a jump into the real-time economy, skipping incremental modernisation steps. Currently, 78% of transactions in Colombia are cash-based, but with rapid digitalisation and 92% bank account penetration, the country is fast-tracking its transition away from cash toward the convenience of a digital economy.
As Colombia accelerates towards a cashless future, however, it’s worth pausing to consider the trade-offs. The convenience of instant payments can also mean growing dependence on digital infrastructure, centralised systems, and private intermediaries. As the last truly anonymous, universally accessible form of money (a.k.a cash) fades, an inclusive digital economy must ensure that speed and access don’t come at the expense of resilience, privacy, or financial autonomy.
Finally, the presence of cross-border instant payments in Colombia – alongside systems already established in Brazil (PIX) and elsewhere in Latin America, could mean we’ll see the emergence of a pan-continental real-time payments (RTP) system in the next few years. With ASEAN nations already having delivered a fully-operational RTP system, let’s hope the EU’s rules, regulations and deadline-driven approach delivers results rapidly. If not, it will start to look like one-to-one integrations between domestic RTP schemes are lower cost – and deliver better results more quickly – than a pan-continental approach driven by regulation.
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