PicPay

Is PicPay safe?

For balances under the FGC limit, yes. Most money customers keep with PicPay sits in CDBs issued by PicPay Bank – Banco Múltiplo S.A., a bank licensed and supervised by the Central Bank of Brazil, and those CDBs are covered by the Fundo Garantidor de Créditos (FGC) up to R$250,000 per person. A smaller amount sits in payment accounts at PicPay's payment institution, which must be ring-fenced but has no FGC cover. The bank's CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary of 15.6% in June 2026 was well above the 8.5% it needs. What holds the score back is how fast and how riskily it lends, weaknesses it has reported in its own internal controls, and the record of its owner, J&F. We score PicPay 65/100, below Nubank at 68 and above Mercado Pago at 60.

Which PicPay company holds your money

Product	Entity	Protection
CDBs, including yield-earning balances	PicPay Bank – Banco Múltiplo S.A.	FGC, R$250,000 per person
Payment-account balance not in CDBs	PicPay Instituição de Pagamento S.A.	Segregated, backed by investments; no FGC
Insurance, funds, investments	Kovr and partners	Not deposits

At 30 June 2026 customers held R$32.8 billion in CDBs and R$1.2 billion in payment accounts, so about 96% of user money was in the FGC-covered bank. The FGC limit counts all covered balances one person holds across a financial conglomerate. Banco Original belongs to the same controlling group, so check with the FGC before treating balances there as separate.

The fund itself was strained in 2026. After the Central Bank liquidated certain banks, the FGC board approved an emergency recapitalisation in February 2026, and PicPay advanced R$170.1 million in March. Payouts continued, but it is one more reason not to sit at the limit.

Capital, growth and bad loans

Measure (30 June 2026)	PicPay
CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary	15.6%
CET1 requirement incl. conservation buffer	8.5%
Total capital ratio	17.6%
Total minimum	10.5%
Credit portfolio	R$31.9 billion, up 99% in a year
Loans 90+ days overdue	9.8%

The buffer looks wide, but three things narrow it. About R$450 million, 1.7 points of the ratio, was still held by the Dutch parent and not yet injected into the bank. The Kovr insurance purchase, closed in August 2026, was expected to use about 1.5 points in the third quarter. And credit quality is weak: 9.8% of loans were more than 90 days late and 12.9% were in the credit-impaired stage 3, against 6.9% over 90 days at Nubank. PicPay says 55% of the book is now secured or partly secured, mostly private payroll loans. Profit is improving, with net income of R$269 million in the second quarter, but Brazil's BB sovereign rating caps how highly any local lender can be rated.

The J&F connection

PicPay is controlled by J&F Investimentos, the Batista family group behind JBS. In 2017 J&F signed a leniency agreement with federal prosecutors over illicit payments to politicians between 2009 and 2015, agreeing to an R$8.0 billion fine; PicPay acceded to it as a J&F affiliate, although the case did not involve its business. Brazil's Supreme Court suspended further instalments in December 2023.

The 20-F also lists loans and receivables deals between PicPay Bank and J&F companies, and says PicPay found material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting for 2023, 2024 and 2025. None of this has led to a regulatory penalty that we found, but it is the main reason conduct scores lower than at Nubank.

A newer case is still open. On 19 June 2026 the Federal District prosecutors' office (MPDFT) served 50 search warrants in Brasília, São Paulo and Curitiba, at PicPay, the state bank BRB and the Federal District's economy department among others. The probe concerns deductions from public servants' payslips linked to payroll-loan agreements, which took more than R$80 million from salaries, according to Agência Brasil. PicPay says it offered salary advances that servants requested in the app, without intermediaries or charges, and that nothing it did was irregular. No one has been charged, and the case does not touch the bank's deposits; we will revisit the conduct score if it leads to charges or a penalty.

Fraud and scams

PicPay is an app-only bank. It uses biometric identity checks, and Brazil's Pix system lets customers set transfer limits and lower night-time caps. We found no major PicPay data breach. The bigger risk is the scams that run across all Brazilian banks: fake Central Bank refund offers, "wrong Pix" tricks and calls from fake bank staff.

How to keep money safe at PicPay

1. Check in the app that your money is in a PicPay Bank CDB rather than an idle payment balance if you want FGC cover, and stay under R$250,000 per person across the group.
2. Spread larger sums across unrelated banking groups.
3. Set a low night-time Pix limit and require biometrics for transfers.
4. Treat insurance, funds and investment products as investments, not protected savings.

How we scored it

Deposit protectionDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary (72) is PicPay's strongest factor, because nearly all customer money sits in FGC-covered CDBs at a licensed bank. Capital (63) is comfortably above the minimum but has to carry a fast-growing, high-arrears loan book. Stability history (60) and conduct (62) are the weakest: a short track record as a bank, losses as recently as 2022, internal-control weaknesses and dealings with its controlling group.