Modernization of the data platform reduced the process from data creation to decision-making to less than a minute and simplified the steps of monitoring, analysis and management of information in real time
PicPay – one of the largest digital banks in Brazil with over 60 million accounts – has modernized its data platform with SingleStore with IBM, a distributed, cloud-native SQL database designed to power data-intensive applications.
The collaboration aims to create a real-time data analysis platform that has reduced the process from data creation to decision-making to less than a minute and simplified the steps of monitoring, analyzing and managing information in real time. The implementation of the new technology has also resulted in significant savings for the business, in addition to greater agility in applications for internal teams and end customers.
With a high volume of daily transactions and events, PicPay's Data department already realized the need to adopt a tool capable of supporting a large volume of information and increasing flexibility in the various routines involving the bank and its information, without sacrificing the agility required by the financial market. The goal was to bring together all of the bank's events – including data from the mobile platform – in a single system that could be enabled by the various business units and allow analytics processes to be run in real time. SingleStore with IBM, already in the testing phase, has proven capable of issuing alerts about any changes to the PicPay app in less than 1 minute.
“Our mission is to disseminate and enable data culture within all areas of PicPay. And to do this, we needed a truly stable, versatile and, above all, secure platform. And the tool performed so well that it was implemented at PicPay,” says Gustavo Tadao, executive who heads the Data area at PicPay, emphasizing the fundamental need to protect sensitive data. “We have a very large volume of business events, especially due to the mobile base and interactions made through the app. And this includes everything that our internal users and end customers do or view, from a simple scroll to a click or viewing of a pop-up,” he explains.
One of the tool’s major advantages is its own mechanisms for storing, consulting and indexing information – which allows for the generation of insights and decision-making the minute the data is entered into the system. “SingleStore with IBM allows our teams to work with information in a harmonious way, both in terms of relational or generic data, as well as when consulting documents and processes, regardless of the technologies used to generate or store the data. This way, it is possible to manage transactions and analyses, while maintaining high availability and low latency, which has left us very satisfied,” says Tadao.
Frank Cara, PicPay's systems architect, reinforces that “we now have the capacity not only to store a high volume of data, but also to make publications and updates without compromising the performance of applications used by internal users or end customers, without any bottlenecks or interference and with all the necessary stability”.
The use of SingleStore with IBM has already yielded surprising results and significant savings in operations in just 2 months. Among the indicators of the positive results of implementing SingleStore with IBM, the project leader says that some areas of the bank have already brought new demands to the Data team, including due to the numerous possibilities for use in other activities.
“This work generated a very positive internal impact,” said Tadao. “In addition to reducing costs, adopting SingleStore allowed us to save efforts because we moved from technical observability to business observability. We can now analyze the results of our campaigns – cashback or recommendations, for example – instantly and, if necessary, make decisions in a matter of minutes. And the trend is to use data more and more broadly, generating a more customized and real-time experience, according to each customer’s profile – which, consequently, should increase the conversion rate in sales of our products due to more assertive recommendations.”
Thanks to the versatility of the SingleStore with IBM platform, the use of the tool is expected to expand at PicPay, involving more and more of the bank's business units. The platform is currently in operation serving the areas of Financial Services for Individuals and Fraud Prevention – and, in the testing phase, in the Cards business unit.
“We are faced with a tool that obtains ultra-fast insights, greater operational efficiency, reduces costs and risks, and improves agility in a short space of time. With this, there is a prospect that more and more areas will want to use SingleStore with IBM and, with this, the bank's data culture will become even more widespread, bringing new opportunities to the bank's business”, said Bruno de Oliveira Garcia, IBM's Data & AI Tech Sales Manager.
To reach the implementation phase, the PicPay Data team had full support and consultancy from RCI Analytics Intelligence – a partner of the North American company.
About IBM
IBM is a leading global provider of hybrid cloud and AI, as well as consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, optimize business processes, reduce costs, and gain competitive advantage in their industries. Thousands of government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to quickly, efficiently, and securely impact their digital transformations. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions, and consulting provide open and flexible options for our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, accountability, inclusion, and service.
About PicPay
With over 12 years of history, PicPay is one of the leading digital banks in Brazil. Founded in Vitória (ES), the company was a pioneer in instant transactions between people and in the use of QR Code, eight years before Pix. Today, PicPay offers a complete portfolio of products and services for individuals, such as credit, investments, insurance and cards, and for entrepreneurs, with solutions such as payment terminals and lines of credit for companies. A reference in the sector in initiatives in generative artificial intelligence and Open Finance, the company achieved net income of R$252 million in 2024, an increase of seven times compared to 2023, and revenue reached R$5.6 billion in the period, an increase of R$61% on the same comparison basis. Recently, PicPay was also elected the best digital bank in the country by popular vote in the iBest award.
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