Key Takeaways
- RoamingPay is PagBrasil’s new solution for enabling seamless real-time cross-border payments.
- It allows travelers to make real-time QR- and key-based account-to-account payments abroad using their existing banking apps or digital wallets.
- The solution connects financial institutions to local payment networks, without the need for multiple integrations.
- Merchants receive payment instantly in their local currency, while users pay in their home currency.
In recent years, QR code payments have transformed the way consumers pay across the globe, especially in Latin America. Instant payment systems like Pix in Brazil have driven rapid adoption of account-to-account (A2A) payments, allowing consumers to complete transactions instantly using their banking apps or digital wallets.
As this model has gained traction, efforts have emerged to extend the same convenience beyond national borders. Solutions such as Pix for international payments and Pix for international travelers were developed by PagBrasil to bring the Pix experience to cross-border scenarios — allowing Brazilians to continue making Pix payments while abroad and enabling international visitors to leverage Brazil’s Pix infrastructure while traveling.
However, while these solutions demonstrate how instant payments can work internationally, they are built on the Pix ecosystem and do not yet address interoperability between the many instant-payment systems and QR standards that exist around the world, such as Bre-B (Colombia), AliPay (China), UPI (India), Bizum (Spain), and the interoperable QR codes in Argentina, Paraguay, and Peru. As more countries develop their own real-time payment infrastructures, enabling these systems to communicate with one another becomes the next major obstacle for cross-border payments.
To address this challenge, PagBrasil introduces RoamingPay, a next-gen approach to cross-border payments that removes the need to extend any single payment system, such as Pix, beyond its domestic infrastructure. Instead, it connects financial institutions to local payment networks from different jurisdictions, enabling travelers to pay abroad via QR codes or payment keys (i.e. account aliases like e-mails or phone numbers) using their own banking apps or digital wallets, with the merchant receiving payment instantly in their local currency.
In this article, we explore the growing adoption of QR code payments, particularly across Latin America; the challenges of enabling cross-border interoperability between local payment systems; and how RoamingPay helps financial institutions offer a seamless international payment experience for their customers, without the need to build or alter existing infrastructure.
The rise of QR code payments across Latin America
Across Latin America, account-to-account transfers using QR codes and payment keys have rapidly become one of the most important drivers of digital payment adoption and financial inclusion. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, the region has seen the largest growth in QR code payments in the world. By allowing consumers to pay directly from their bank accounts or digital wallets, QR-based payment systems provide a fast, secure alternative to traditional card payments and cash.
Brazil has been a major catalyst for this shift. Since its launch in 2020, Pix has transformed the country’s payment landscape, making instant account-to-account payments accessible to millions of consumers and businesses. The widespread adoption of QR codes within the Pix ecosystem has helped normalize the experience of simply scanning a code to complete a payment.
At the same time, many other countries have been developing their own instant payment infrastructures and QR-based payment systems. Argentina, for example, has built a growing QR payment ecosystem known as Transferencias 3.0 (3.0 Transfers) that enables consumers to make digital payments across a wide network of merchants. Similarly, Bre-B, a government-backed instant payment system in Colombia, connects different financial institutions and wallets to allow users to send money across platforms. Other initiatives are also emerging across Latin America and beyond, as regulators and financial institutions increasingly recognize the benefits of real-time payments.
As these systems continue to expand, QR payments are becoming an everyday expectation for consumers across the region, with as much as one fifth of consumer expenditure coming from instant payments. What was once considered an innovative payment method is now part of the normal checkout experience in many markets, reinforcing the role of instant, account-to-account payments as a cornerstone of the Latin American digital payment landscape.
Why cross-border QR payments are still a challenge
Despite the rapid adoption of QR code payments throughout many markets, enabling these transactions across borders is far more complex than enabling them within a single country.
Most instant payment systems were designed primarily for domestic use, built around local regulations, currencies, and technical standards. As a result, each market tends to develop its own payment infrastructure and QR code specifications, optimized for its internal ecosystem.
While this approach allows payment systems to scale quickly within individual countries, it also creates fragmentation at the international level. A QR code generated in one market may not be readable by applications built for another payment system, and even when the technical standards align, differences in currency, settlement processes, and compliance requirements can make cross-border transactions difficult to support.
For financial institutions, enabling international QR payments therefore requires much more than simply allowing users to scan a code abroad. It involves managing currency conversion, settlement across jurisdictions, integration with multiple payment networks, and compliance with different regulatory frameworks.
This complexity explains why, despite the success of instant payment systems around the world, true interoperability between them remains one of the next major frontiers for cross-border payments.
RoamingPay: Connecting local payment networks across borders
As instant payment systems continue to expand worldwide, financial institutions are increasingly looking for ways to extend these experiences beyond national borders. Enabling users to pay abroad using their preferred mobile banking apps or wallets is becoming an important opportunity to improve the travel experience while expanding the reach of digital payments.
RoamingPay was designed to make this possible. Developed by PagBrasil, the solution acts as an infrastructure layer that connects financial institutions to local payment networks in different markets. Instead of building and maintaining individual integrations with each country’s payment infrastructure, banks and wallet providers can connect once and access multiple ecosystems through a single integration.
By managing the technical connections between payment networks, RoamingPay allows users to make real-time QR- and key-based payments abroad using the banking apps or wallets they already use at home. The payment is processed through the local network, while RoamingPay manages the interoperability layer that enables the transaction to move across systems.
A key advantage of this model is that it does not require any changes on the merchant side. Any business that already accepts a local instant payment method (such as Pix in Brazil or Bre-B in Colombia) can automatically accept payments from international users. There is no need for additional contracts, technical integrations, or support for foreign payment methods.
From the merchant’s perspective, the transaction remains entirely domestic. The payment is received through the local network, in the local currency, just like any other transaction. From a financial point of view, in many cases the merchant can’t distinguish whether the payment was made by a local customer or an international visitor.
This approach simplifies one of the biggest challenges in cross-border instant payments: enabling different payment infrastructures to communicate with each other without requiring complex bilateral integrations. At the same time, it allows financial institutions to offer a seamless payment experience and competitive exchange rate to their customers while traveling internationally — dramatically expanding acceptance without requiring any action from merchants.
How RoamingPay works
For travelers, paying with RoamingPay feels no different from making an instant payment at home. They simply scan the merchant’s QR code or enter the merchant’s payment key using their banking app or digital wallet and confirm the transaction — completing the payment in their own currency in real time.
Behind the scenes, however, several processes occur simultaneously to ensure the transaction can move seamlessly across payment systems and currencies:
| Step | What Happens |
| 1. Payment initiation | The traveler scans a local QR code or enters a payment key at the merchant using their banking app or digital wallet. |
| 2. Payment request identification | RoamingPay recognizes the QR code format and retrieves the payment details from the local payment network. |
| 3. Currency conversion by RoamingPay | RoamingPay converts the payment amount in the merchant’s currency to USD or EUR. |
| 4. Currency conversion by the bank | The bank converts the value in USD or EUR to the user’s home currency. |
| 5. Payment authorization | The user reviews the transaction in their banking app, with the amount displayed in their currency. They confirm the payment, and the money is debited from their account. |
| 6. Merchant settlement | The merchant receives the payment in their local currency in real time through the domestic payment infrastructure. |
| 7. Cross-border settlement | RoamingPay handles the entire cross-border settlement, including operations, reporting, and all regulatory and compliance aspects. |
Benefits for banks and wallets
For financial institutions, enabling cross-border QR payments can unlock new opportunities while strengthening the value of their existing digital payment services. RoamingPay is designed to make this possible without requiring banks or fintechs to build and maintain complex integrations with multiple foreign payment infrastructures.
Key benefits include:
- Stronger primary customer relationship in a competitive landscape: By enabling cross-border payments natively within the banking app, financial institutions reinforce their position as the customer’s go-to financial platform, increasing engagement while reducing exposure to cross-border-focused competitors.
- Seamless payment experiences for travelers: Customers can pay abroad using the banking apps or digital wallets they already use at home, without having to download any new apps or adapt to unfamiliar systems. This ensures a consistent and frictionless payment experience while traveling.
- A single integration for multiple ecosystems: Through one integration with RoamingPay, banks and wallet providers can connect to multiple local payment networks, without any additional development. This simplifies both technical implementation and ongoing maintenance.
- Faster international expansion: Financial institutions can enable cross-border QR payments without establishing direct integrations with each country’s payment network, significantly reducing the time and resources required to enter new markets. As RoamingPay expands its network coverage, institutions gain access to new markets automatically, with no additional integration, operational effort, or contracts required.
- Reduced operational complexity: RoamingPay manages key elements of cross-border payments, including interoperability between payment systems and currency conversion, allowing financial institutions to focus on delivering value to their users.
- Pre-funding in international currency: RoamingPay handles pre-funding in major international currencies such as USD or EUR. This allows financial institutions to avoid managing balances in multiple local currencies while simplifying liquidity and treasury operations.
- New revenue opportunities: By enabling international QR payments, financial institutions can generate additional revenue streams through transaction fees, foreign exchange services, and interest from credit line utilization.
A new layer for global QR payment interoperability
As instant payment systems continue to expand around the world, the ability to connect these ecosystems will play a key role in shaping the future of global commerce. Travelers increasingly expect to pay abroad using the same digital payment methods they rely on at home, while financial institutions are looking for ways to support these experiences without adding operational complexity.
RoamingPay represents the next step in this evolution. By enabling interoperability between local QR payment networks, the infrastructure allows banks and wallet providers to extend their services beyond domestic borders while maintaining a simple integration model and streamlined settlement processes.
With the initial launch in Brazil and Argentina and a fast-growing roadmap that includes additional markets across Latin America and beyond, RoamingPay is designed to help financial institutions participate in a growing network of cross-border instant payments.
Interested in enabling RoamingPay for your users?
Talk to a PagBrasil specialist to learn how this new solution can support your international payment strategy.
Frequently asked questions about RoamingPay
1. Which countries are currently supported?
RoamingPay currently supports QR payments in Brazil (BRL) and Argentina (ARS), with plans already underway to expand to other LATAM countries as well as Europe. This will allow financial institutions to progressively extend cross-border QR payment capabilities for their users, without the need for new contracts or technical integrations, as new markets are added.
2. Who can integrate with RoamingPay?
RoamingPay is designed for financial institutions, including electronic clearing houses, digital and traditional banks, leading wallet issuers, and financial hubs that want to enable cross-border QR payments for their users.
3. Do users need a new app to make payments with RoamingPay?
No. Users can pay using the same banking apps or digital wallets they already use at home. RoamingPay operates as an interoperability layer that connects these apps to local QR payment networks abroad, allowing travelers to pay using familiar payment experiences.
4. How is currency conversion handled during the transaction?
When a user scans a QR code or enters a payment key in their app, RoamingPay returns the transaction amount in a base currency (USD or EUR), allowing the user’s financial institution to handle the conversion to the user’s local currency. The exchange rate is guaranteed at the moment the transaction is confirmed, providing transparency, convenience, and safety from currency fluctuation for both the user and the participating financial institution.
5. What is the merchant settlement timeframe?
The QR code payment itself is processed instantly. The merchant receives the payment in their local currency in real time through the domestic payment infrastructure.
6. Who assumes the foreign exchange risk?
PagBrasil guarantees the exchange rate for the conversion from the payment’s currency into USD/EUR at the moment the transaction is executed. The issuing bank is then responsible for converting from USD/EUR into the user’s local currency and managing the associated exchange rate.
7. Does the solution require multiple integrations?
No. Financial institutions only need a single integration through the RoamingPay API to access multiple QR payment ecosystems as new markets are added, no additional development required.
