“Carry your most important goal in your wallet” – Jack Canfield.

Today's technology is advancing at an incredible rate. It makes our daily activities easier for us and it significantly improves our lives.

However, people have always wondered and looked for a way to integrate digital wallets into everyday life. But the green light turned on in a small room in Brazil, where Darcio Schwab Stehling created one of the largest digital wallets today, called PicPay.

Partnering with Anderson Andrade Chamon de Carmo and Diogo Brumas Carvalho Roberte in the late 90s, Darcio decided to create a digital wallet that would provide an easy payment method to people in Brazil and around the world. Today, their story of creating PicPay is ten years old.

Its creation is proof that taking a step outside the comfort zone can lead to significant victories. Come with me to find out the full story of PicPay - the most popular payment platform in Brazil.

Baby Steps Towards Success

Behind every great success is a long journey, and this one begins in Vitorio, Espirito Santo. Darcio, Anderson, and Diogo, these three high school friends, managed to take steps towards their dreams. As a result, the story of PicPay begins to unfold.

Darcio Schwab Stehling is a serial entrepreneur working in the financial services and technology industries, born and raised in Vittorio, Espirito Santo.

Darcio has always wished to start a business that will propel him forward and allow him to make a significant impact in the world of technology. He spent many years following the advancement of technology.

Anderson Andrade Chamon de Carmo was born in Vittorio and raised there, where he met Darcio. Prior to founding PicPay, the two worked to meet the company's third partner, Diogo Brumas Carvalho Roberte.

Their shared, strong desire to start a company that would make people's lives simpler was the driving force behind PicPay. After analyzing the evolution of technology in the late 1990s, they came to the conclusion that mobile technology is evolving and successfully developing. Back then, smartphones could do a lot of things, but not make money. What bothered them the most was the lack of QR code usage on the mobile platform.

Their shared energy and strong desire for a restless business were the reasons that motivated them to keep going and never give up. As a result of their work, in 2012, they founded PicPay — one of the largest mobile payment applications that use QR codes for transactions.

Success Is Within Reach

PicPay is a technology company, an online payment platform founded in July 2012 in Vittorio, Espirito Santo. With the goal of simplifying the financial industry, the firm launched a mobile application that provided customers with quick and secure payment solutions, such as the ability to make payments through QR code, making it one of the first digital wallets to do so.

PicPay is one of the largest online payment applications in Brazil that aims to provide reliable services and products to customers. Its business model is composed of five pillars in one platform: a digital wallet, a PicPay store, advertising, and social and financial markets.

PicPay's key purpose is to meet business goals and gain a large number of satisfied customers by following their seven core values: accessibility, determination, discipline, honesty, humility, simplicity, and ownership.

A Green Light for Progress

In 2013, the company implemented the P2P payment option (person-to-person payment) in order to increase involvement and attract more customers. Users may use this to look up the name of the person who would receive the money and transfer it to them instantaneously, at no cost, using their credit card or digital wallet balance.

PicPay Pro, a payment solution for those who want to receive payments on sales, was introduced in 2014 by PicPay. This method of payment accepts payments in installments and in unlimited amounts. Payments can be made between accounts or through a payment link. The platform's performance attracted large investors. Banco Original and J&F Group both invested in the company in 2015, when Banco Original purchased a large part of PicPay's business. PicPay grew dramatically in 2016, reaching 500.000 subscribers.

In 2017, the firm established the PicPay Store, which allows users to recharge their cell phones and transportation cards. PicPay Subscriptions (perfect for crowdfunding, content creators, and subscriptions) and E-commerce (for payments on websites) were released in 2018. The highlights of the year for the company were the emergence of an ATM withdrawal option in Banco24Horas's network and digital wallet performance.

The PicPay Card was introduced the same year, and 4 million cards were produced in just a few months. The product already has the debit function activated without an annual cost, and credit is also issued depending on the customer's profile.

In 2020, PicPay introduced Pix into the platform's conversation chat, so when transactions happen, the user is informed via a text message, which can be answered using videos, emoticons, or photos. The difference that this application has made is that, with Pix, every user can chat privately with other users for free. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, digital payments flourished, boosting PicPay, which had reeled in 38.8 million users at the end of the year.

2021 was also a successful year for the company. As long as the COVID pandemic was present, the company saw even greater growth in satisfied customers.

Developing Financial Security

The development of PicPay has seen dramatic changes regarding finances.

In 2015, the company was acquired by J&F Participation (a company owned by Wesley and Josley Batista), which still owns the majority of PicPay, with a 77.3% share of the business. Other investors include Banco Original, with whom PicPay became a partner in 2015, and owns 22.70% of the business.

The upward fluctuation of the finances of PicPay is a huge plus and an additional boost for the company. Between 2018 and 2019, the company had more than $5 billion in the wallet with over 18 million users.

However, 2020 was one of the most successful years for PicPay.The company saw an increase in its active customer base from 28.4 million to 36 million. To boost its growth, in 2020, PicPay set aside $146 million, boosting revenue to $71 million.

The rise of PicPay’s customer base does not appear to be slowing down. In 2021, the company reached the highlight of the year by increasing the number of active users to 60 million. This year, PicPay is worth a whopping $4 billion.

PicPay's IPO is currently led by Banco Bradesco BBI, Barclays Capital INC, Banco BTG Pactual, and Santader Investment Securities Inc.

PicPay, Today

It seems that the ten-year partnership and hard work of Darcio, Diogo, and Anderson marked great, successful achievements for PicPay. In 2020, PicPay managed to occupy one of the top positions among the largest payment apps in Brazil.

The COVID-19 pandemic helped the company gain over 60 million users and made it the most widely used online payment application in Brazil. Currently, there are two offices in Brazil with over 3600 employees, which helps in the development of the company.

PicPay faces strong competition from companies such as Vipps, OY, PayPal, Mercadopago, and others, but all of them have nothing on PicPay since the company is a fan-favorite in native Brazil.

Today, PicPay offers six core products: digital wallet, business and acceptance, Financial Marketplace, PicPay Store, Ads, and Social payments platform. With the help of these products, the company strives to further advance in the world of technology.

Darcio and Anderson are still aspiring to paint the world green and make it easier for people around the world to make a payment. Whatever the future may hold for PicPay, we see them at the top with even more satisfied customers and a whole new batch of services.