Accepting Elo as a merchant
Elo is a Brazilian domestic card brand for debit, credit and prepaid cards. It started in 2011 with debit and credit cards, and the company behind it is Elo Serviços S.A. Adyen describes Elo as formed by three of Brazil's largest banks, Banco do Brasil, Bradesco and CAIXA, as third in market share in Brazil after Visa and Mastercard, and as having over 41 million active cards. For a merchant in Europe, Elo matters when you sell to shoppers in Brazil. The first thing to establish is which of two routes an Elo card takes to reach you: domestic acquiring in Brazil, or the Discover and Diners Club network outside it.
Published prices for EloPer provider, country and channel, further down this pageGo to the pricesHow to accept Elo as a merchant
You do not contract Elo. Elo is a card scheme, and a merchant reaches it through an acquirer or PSP. Elo publishes the participants in its payment arrangements at the instruction of Banco Central do Brasil, and the participants it lists are Brazilian institutions.
Domestic Elo acceptance is tied to Brazil. Adyen states that it processes and settles Elo over its own licence connection, in Brazilian reais, and that you need an entity in Brazil to collect payments with Elo. A merchant without a Brazilian entity takes the other route: international Elo cards paid through its acceptance of Discover and Diners Club. In the index, Novalnet offers Elo to merchants established in Europe.
Network
Elo is a card scheme with its own domestic network
Elo supports credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Its own description adds specialised cards, tokenisation and fraud prevention platforms, and payments by QR code and NFC. For the merchant an Elo payment behaves like any card payment: the issuer authorises, the acquirer captures and settles, and Adyen lists chargebacks among the features of the method.
On the domestic route Adyen processes and settles in Brazilian reais and lists both online and in-person acceptance. Adyen also lists instalments among the Elo features, so a Brazilian shopper can split a purchase on the card, which matters for any merchant that sells higher-value goods in Brazil.
Where Elo is used, and where it is sold
Elo is a Brazilian brand and is used in Brazil. Outside Brazil Elo states acceptance in more than 200 countries and territories, and tells cardholders to look for the Diners Club and Discover marks in shops and on international websites. For cash withdrawals it names Pulse and Discover in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, and Diners Club elsewhere.
Adyen states the same from the acquiring side: Elo has international acceptance over the Discover network. For a European webshop that means a Brazilian shopper paying with an Elo card is, at the acquirer, paying on the Discover and Diners Club network.
Pricing
Elo prints no merchant price, and the domestic price assumes a Brazilian entity
Elo publishes no price for merchants, because the merchant does not contract with Elo. Novalnet offers Elo in the index and publishes no price for it. On its Elo page, under Brazil, Adyen prints a fixed fee of 0.13 plus interchange plus 0.60%, without naming the currency of the fixed fee, and states that interchange is variable and passed through. Adyen also states that you need an entity in Brazil to collect payments with Elo, so that price assumes a Brazilian entity.
Take an order of 150 euro. The margin of 0.60% is 0.90 euro, before the fixed fee and interchange. On 1.2 million euro of Elo volume a year at that average, 8,000 orders, the margin is 7,200 euro, with 8,000 fixed fees and interchange on top.
These are published list prices and the example is illustrative; your quoted rate decides what you actually pay. On the cross-border route there is no Elo price at all: an international Elo card is priced at whatever your agreement sets for Discover and Diners Club cards.
Acceptance
Abroad, an Elo card is a Discover or Diners Club payment
Unless its PSP offers Elo as a method of its own, as Novalnet does in the index, a merchant without a Brazilian entity does not switch Elo on as a separate method. Whether an international Elo card goes through depends on whether your acquirer accepts Discover and Diners Club cards, and what you pay for it depends on the rate in that part of your agreement. Check that part of your agreement before you count on Elo sales.
Take an illustrative 2,000 card attempts a month from Brazilian shoppers at an average of 150 euro, of which 10% are on Elo cards. That is 200 attempts and 30,000 euro a month, 360,000 euro a year, that depend on Discover and Diners Club acceptance. Without it those shoppers cannot pay with that card. With it, a rate one percentage point above your Visa and Mastercard rate costs 3,600 euro a year on that volume.
Both numbers come from your own data. Count the Brazilian attempts on Elo BINs, check whether your acquirer accepts Discover and Diners Club, and put the rate for those cards beside your other card rates before you decide what Elo is worth to you.
Contract
On the domestic route, fix settlement and conversion in writing
A merchant that does set up a Brazilian entity takes Elo in reais. Adyen lists a settlement delay of 30 days for Elo, and processing and settlement in Brazilian reais. Both are terms that differ from a European card agreement, and both affect when and in which currency your takings arrive.
Have your PSP confirm in writing the settlement term for Elo on your account, whether instalment payments settle on the same term, how reais are converted to your payout currency and at which margin, and which entity is the merchant of record for each sale.
National and international Elo cards
Elo's own card range includes an Elo Básico Nacional, described for use throughout Brazil, and an Elo Básico Internacional, described for use in Brazil and in the world. Elo's page on international acceptance does not state which of its cards work abroad.
For a merchant selling cross-border, that means part of the Elo cards in Brazilian hands may not reach a European checkout at all, regardless of your acquirer and your risk rules. Track Elo declines from Brazilian shoppers separately, and keep a second method available at the moment an Elo card is refused, so the order does not end at the payment step.
Which payment providers support Elo
In the index, Novalnet offers Elo to merchants established in Europe, and publishes no price for it. Adyen offers Elo to merchants with an entity in Brazil, at a fixed fee plus interchange plus 0.60%. International Elo cards can also be accepted by any acquirer that accepts Discover and Diners Club cards.
The questions to put to each are the same: whether Elo runs on a domestic or a cross-border route, the rate on Discover and Diners Club cards, the settlement term and currency, the conversion margin from reais, and how instalments settle.
Retail Payment Methods Transparency Index
Published prices for Elo, per provider
One provider in the index offers Elo to merchants established in Europe, and it publishes no price.
Each rate is shown as the provider prints it, and the provider's name links to the page it was read on. A published rate is a list rate: what a merchant actually pays is stated in the quoted rate and the contract.
The country where your business is established and from which you sell.
| Provider | Per transaction | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Novalnet Merchants in Germany | No price published | Online |
Source: EcomStream, Retail Payment Methods Transparency Index, ecomstream.eu/payment-methods-transparency-index. Read at source between 7 October 2026 and 7 October 2026. A provider that believes a row is wrong can write to index@ecomstream.nl. Every reported correction is checked at the source.
Reviewing what Elo costs you
What you pay for Elo is set in your agreement with your PSP or acquirer, not by Elo. Start by establishing whether you are overpaying your PSP, and where Brazilian shoppers carry a material share of your volume, check your Discover and Diners Club acceptance and rate before you renew.
Relevant markets: Brazil
Payment set-up check
Selling to shoppers in Brazil? Let's check whether Elo cards reach you, and at what price.
Enter your webshop. The check sets your checkout against what shoppers in each of your markets expect, and names the gaps. If you want, it then calculates what those gaps cost you in euros.
Ramon Helwegen
