March 30, 2023

Pix Protection is one of the 10 Innovation Ambassadors 2022, selected from 86 initiatives in 21 countries and 24 entities. Discover how BNP Paribas Cardif Brazil moved quickly to provide coverage for a booming P2P digital payment service.


Introduce yourself briefly:


My name is Daniel Hortence Fernandes (on the left). I work in Cardif Brazil Retail and New Industries Structure, reporting to Thiago Machado (on the right). Currently, I focus on creating and developing initiatives that may bring us greater attachment rates through Retailers and more recently assumed the role to kick off our first Telco partnership in Brazil.

 
Tell us about your project: What is it about and how it came about?  


Since February 2022, according to official data, PIX is the most used payment method in Brazil. Launched by September 2020, through a Government initiative, the innovative way for Brazilians to transfer money peer to peer outperformed all others methods faster than most people could imagine. Such drastic and fast-paced change brought along a huge of challenges to financial industry, including insurance. 

Amidst of all these market movements, BNP Paribas Cardif saw itself in the right place with the right partnership to be launched: Mercado Pago - Top 3 on Digital Banks Brazilian Ranking, Mercado Libre’s owned bank with more than 40 million clients. 

“In 2021, I remember we were moving on with the implementation flow of our regular Personal Insurance Protection Product, when we understood that the market was calling for more. PIX was only a promise and, the fact that it was going to be our first Digital Bank Partnership in Brazil was already a huge challenge; it could keep us caught up with the technologic efforts that initiatives like these demand and deliver the best fit for this new reality.” 
Say Thiago Machado, Head of Retail and New Industries in BNP Paribas Cardif Brazil

As part of its duty of being on top of latest trends, BNP Paribas Cardif Brazil's team always stays close to innovation industry key-players (forums, incubators, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs) and it was getting clearer every day that the traditional insurance market for personal finance protection was about to change. “PIX wasn’t the mania as it is right now, but the entire buzz we detected through conversations with Mercado Pago and the massive growth of the PIX adoption numbers provoked us to move faster.” Say Thiago Machado

By October 2021, Mercado Pago and BNP Paribas Cardif pioneered the Brazilian Market by launching what is now called “Pix Insurance”, an insurance that covers transactions or ATM cash taken out under coercion. This meant aligning with our company’s mission of making insurance more accessible in a changing world and also represented a first step on this new digital bank industry in Brazil. 

For me personally, Pix Protection was something that I was glad to be involved in during my first days at Cardif. It was all about creating an insurance that could fit to the new reality of the Brazilian Market that was undergoing a massive change, with digital transactions becoming more accessible and cheaper. I would highlight that pioneering Pix Protection reinforced the leadership positioning that BNP Paribas Cardif holds in Brazil. To do that with one of the most powerful tech brands (MeLi/Mercado Pago) made that even a bigger accomplishment.  


What did you find most striking/surprising during this project? 


To be honest, I was amazed about how powerful it can be to be in touch with key innovators. To nourish these conversations in a healthy pace was key for us to build, faster than any other competitor, the sense that something huge was about to happen in our industry and that was high time for Insurers to move forward and get to deliver an insurance that finally fits the needs of a whole new environment.


What advice would you give to employees who also want to innovate? 


Aligned with what I mentioned above, my advice would be a quote I heard from Steve Jobs during a Stanford’s Graduation: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. Without that, we would never be a step ahead to the market. And to conclude, my boss Thiago and I both believe, always keep the “Can-do” attitude, because sometimes one may surrender to the traditionalism and lose the opportunity to pioneer and to create a new (and better) standard.