Boleto Bancário is a payment method popular in Brazil which is gaining wide acceptance for online transactions. Unlike credit cards, debit cards and checks, all of whom provide a direct or indirect route to the customer’s bank account and potentially a route to identify theft and fraud, the Boleto Bancário grew as a way to avoid fraud and, in an era of mistrust of credit in Latin America, to avoid using credit when shopping online.

The Boleto Bancário online payment process starts with a customer placing an order on the merchant’s website and chooses to pay by Boleto Bancário. The customers are presented with a form where they fill out their payment details, and they can then opt to either pay immediately through an online banking option or to print out the filled form, bring it to a bank and pay for it with cash. When the payment is made at the customer’s bank, a confirmation of completed payment is sent to the merchant’s payment processor, and the merchant is notified. A couple of days later, the funds are transferred from the payment processor into the merchant’s bank account.

By providing the option to pay for goods and services online with cash, Boleto Bancário has opened the doors of online commerce to consumers without credit cards and those wary of the fraud risks associated with other online payments. This benefits merchants by allowing them to sell to a wider range of customers than were available before. An additional benefit to merchants is that the payment is irreversible by the consumer and chargebacks cannot be issued.