BCB Register Audit: Which Brazil-Facing iGaming PSPs Hold Real Authorization

Brazil banned sports betting and online casino on September 25, 2026, through Provisional Measure 1.394, and the same measure closed every Brazilian payment rail to betting except the payments that close an operator's book and refund its bettors. Licensed sites and apps started going offline on October 6, and bettors' balances left in operators' transactional accounts go back to them through the banks and payment institutions that hold those accounts. The measure gave those institutions October 9 to 14, 2026, to refund bettors by CPF, preferably to the account each deposit came from, and whatever they cannot return in that window goes to an account at Caixa Econômica Federal, which handles refunds after that. The accounts are a legacy of Law 14.790, which opened Brazil's licensed market on January 1, 2025, and let only institutions authorized by the Banco Central carry a licensed operator's betting money. The question about any PSP that served Brazil is therefore whether it is an authorized instituição de pagamento or a brand in front of somebody else's authorization.

Of the 13 Brazil-facing brands below, eleven hold a BCB authorization of their own or through a captive institution. Bazk ran on a partner bank, and D24 holds no BCB authorization and moves Brazilian money through locally authorized partner institutions.

BCB payment institution authorization vs Pix participation vs bank charter

An IP authorization is the central bank's license for an instituição de pagamento, granted modality by modality. Emissora de moeda eletrônica (e-money issuer) is the base class for holding customer balances. Credenciadora covers acquiring, and iniciadora de transação de pagamento (ITP) is the open-finance initiation permission. The post-paid instrument class completes the set. An authorized IP can still lack the modality an operator needs. Transfeera, the captive IP that carries PayRetailers' Pix, holds only the e-money modality, and the group's acquiring sits with P R do Brasil IP, authorized as an e-money issuer and acquirer.

Pix participation is a separate status. Until Resolution BCB 429/2024 closed Pix to new participants without a BCB authorization, the system admitted payment institutions that did not need one, and the transitional window of Resolution BCB 80/2021 let an institution keep operating while its authorization application was pending. A Pix join date can therefore come years before an authorization. Participation also comes in two settlement shapes, an own settlement account in the SPI or indirect settlement through another participant acting as liquidante. Both are legitimate, though an indirect participant depends on its liquidante for every Pix payment.

A bank charter is the third shape. Banco Topázio, the bank Bazk ran on, and BancoSeguro, the PagBank group's bank, are banks and sit under a heavier regime than any IP. A provider that fronts a partner bank holds no authorization of its own, and the bank that holds the accounts is the regulated party.

BCB authorization status of 13 Brazil-facing iGaming PSPs

The Banco Central identifies every institution by its CNPJ, so an authorization, or the lack of one, belongs to the legal entity behind each brand.

AstroPay's BCB authorization in Brazil

Astro Instituição de Pagamento Ltda, AstroPay's Brazilian entity, holds a BCB authorization as e-money issuer and payment initiator, granted on November 29, 2024, and published in the DOU on December 5, 2024. Astro had joined Pix in June 2023, so for the 18 months before that authorization it ran Pix under the Resolution 80/2021 transitional window, settling through another participant, as it still does.

BCB authorization for OKTO, Pay4Fun, Zimpler and PayRetailers

OKTO's authorized Brazilian entity is the former U4C Instituição de Pagamento, legally renamed OKTO Instituição de Pagamento S.A., and the central bank approved the control change to OKTO's founder in a decision published January 7, 2025. The result is a captive authorized IP with e-money and initiation modalities and a direct Pix account. OKTO also has a second Brazilian entity with no authorization, OKTO Pagamentos S.A., and only the CNPJ tells the two apart.

Pay4Fun won its authorization on June 7, 2022, before Brazil's licensed market opened, and was the first payment institution authorized in Brazil's betting segment. Zimpler holds the initiation modality alongside e-money issuance. At PayRetailers, the group's own Brazilian entity, P R do Brasil, authorized as issuer and acquirer, is not a Pix participant. The group's Pix rail is Transfeera, the captive it bought in 2024, so every Pix payment the group sends or receives runs under Transfeera's CNPJ. Transfeera joined Pix in 2021 as a payment institution that did not need a BCB authorization, settling through another participant. Its authorization was published in the DOU on November 9, 2023, and it now settles on its own SPI account.

PSP liability for betting payments in Brazil

Brazil tied its betting rules to the payment chain from December 2025 through 2026, and every duty binds an institution by its CNPJ. Under art. 6 of Complementary Law 224/2025, a bank or payment institution that keeps processing for an unlicensed operator after a joint notice from the SPA and the federal revenue service is jointly liable for that operator's tax. Portaria MF 1.766 of June 17, 2026, sets how the two agencies issue that notice. The liability survives the ban, and once all federal and state authorizations end on October 25, 2026, it applies to processing for any betting operator. From August 28, 2026, CMN Resolution 5.320 made a notified institution freeze an unlicensed operator's accounts within 24 hours and report back to the SPA within 48 hours, a duty that has reached every betting operator since the ban. MP 1.394 adds a report to COAF and lets the frozen money be forfeited to the federal government by administrative process.

Under art. 14 of the measure, banks, payment institutions and the owners and participants of payment arrangements may handle betting transactions only to close an operator's book and refund bettors, and Resolution BCB 590 of September 28, 2026, made them block everything else without waiting for scheme rules to change. From December 1, 2026, institutions in the central bank's fraud-marker system must report illegal-betting indicators, and the flags land on payment intermediaries as well as on bettors' accounts. A PSP with its own authorization carries the refunds itself for the operators whose transactional accounts it holds, while a brand without one leaves them to the partner institution behind it.

How to check a BCB authorization

Checking a Brazilian payment institution takes three files, each searched by CNPJ and never by brand, because the Banco Central authorizes P R do Brasil, Astro IP, Zero IP and Pay IP, not PayRetailers, AstroPay, Z.ro or Vpag. Every authorized IP in operation is in the BCB's open-data register (olinda). Every Pix participant is on the official participant list, with its join date, its settlement shape and an initiation flag that does not mean the ITP modality, because account-holding participants initiate without it. An institution's modalities and authorization dates are published only in its authorization despachos in the Diário Oficial.

Brazil ties the authorization to a named legal entity, and so do the EU for crypto-asset service providers under MiCA, the UK for payment firms the FCA authorizes, six US states for gaming payment vendors and Peru for payment gateways registered with MINCETUR.