After launching its digital account, Banco PAN incorporates PIX

The project

November 16, 2020, will be forever etched in the memory of financial institutions. That's when a new payment system began to operate: apart from the traditional Brazilian Payment System (SPB), the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) put into operation the Instant Payment System (SPI), called PIX. That meant an easier, faster, and no-cost way to transfer money for the population, and for financial institutions was the result of diligent work against the clock.

Shortly after launching its digital account, in February 2020, Banco PAN faced the challenge of setting PIX live. With a tight schedule and strict deadlines on the part of the Central Bank of Brazil, Banco PAN chose to prioritize the implementation of PIX as one of its main projects in the year 2020.

Partnership

At the beginning of 2020, it was decided that there would be a dedicated and exclusive squad to work on PIX. Dextra, now CI&T, was called, and quickly composed a team of 15 specialists. In addition to launching the system on the scheduled date, the Central Bank of Brazil made predictions throughout the process.

Banco PAN participated in all deliveries, including the optional ones. During the platform development process, the initially planned schedule was brought forward, forcing PAN and its squad to replan and race against time: the BCB determined that it would be necessary to have the platform ready for customers to pre-register the keys between October 5th and November 3rd, which was not planned.

In addition, PAN added two differentiators to its PIX. When opening the account, and during onboarding, the customer immediately finds the option to register the PIX key. The other innovation was the insertion of a shortcut in the mobile application, before entering the 'logged in' area. This leads to the PIX, making access easier and faster and providing the customer with a more fluid experience.

“The PIX was a challenge for everyone in the market and a unique learning experience. We have to remember that TED was launched 20 years ago, and we didn't participate in the implementation of this functionality; now, the PIX is another milestone within the financial market,” summarizes Henrique Marise, responsible for the means of payment team at Banco PAN.

Technologies used

Parallel developments to PIX, apart from the digital team, were fundamental for the success of the project. In the view of the technology superintendent of Banco PAN, Cícero Menezes, “We set up a team calendar so that developments took place in parallel and would meet halfway. We set, for example, dates for the consolidation of codes.”

On the part of Dextra (CI&T), the teams were also divided between those who developed the mobile, front-end functionalities and those focused on the back-end. On mobile, the APIs were developed for the two main operating systems (OS): Android, from Google, and iOS, from Apple.

Regarding the front-end, native platforms were used: iOS with the Swift language and Android with the Kotlin language. On the back-end, Java language in Spring framework, with microservices and AWS cloud hosting.

The backend integrates with the instant payment management (GI) system platform. “The GI was being developed as we were also developing the backend. This was a huge challenge because we were creating and thinking about what could come next, starting from the principle that it would be in a certain way. In addition, the BCB changed things along the way and we had to update them in time,” says Érica Turcarelli, Squad Leader at CI&T.

Choosing Dextra (CI&T) was almost natural. Banco PAN had been working with the company for about a year when it faced the need to incorporate yet another payment system into the platform. As part of the digital account development, Dextra (CI&T) assisted the bank in meeting demands.“We have always called Dextra (CI&T) for our challenges. Their team is technically very good, which is fundamental because if we didn't have the appropriate seniority, we wouldn't be able to deliver the PIX,” Menezes attests.

Most of the team that developed the PIX in PAN was from Dextra (CI&T). “It was a strategic and complex project. We chose Dextra (CI&T) due to the relationship of trust we had and Dextra (CI&T) put in a top team,” says Marise. “Dextra (CI&T) bought the challenge and we were successful because of the team's commitment,” adds Isabella Romão Faedo, product owner of the PIX project.


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