How to accept PSE payments in Colombia from abroad (2026)

To accept PSE payments in Colombia from abroad, use a provider that collects pesos locally and settles to you in dollars. The shopper picks their bank, approves the debit on the bank's own site, and the pesos arrive in minutes. With BlindPay, you send the payer's details on a payin quote, open the PSE link, and receive USD stablecoins.

PSE is how Colombians pay online without a card. This guide covers the flow for a business outside Colombia as of October 2026. For the full checkout stack, start with what a global payments checkout is.

Key takeaways

• PSE (Pagos Seguros en Línea) is an online bank debit operated by ACH Colombia, paid from savings, checking, or electronic deposit accounts.
• PSE needs six payer fields: name, document type (CC or NIT), document number, email, a +57 phone, and a bank code.
• COP amounts are whole pesos, and the minimum payin is 2,000 COP.
• PSE payins typically settle within minutes. BlindPay waits up to 30 minutes before marking one failed.
• Payouts to Colombia go over ACH Colombia in about 1 business day.

What is PSE and how does it work at checkout?

PSE is Colombia's online bank debit. The shopper approves the payment inside their own bank, not on your page.

According to PSE, the service lets people make purchases and payments online by debiting their savings account, checking account, or electronic deposit. It is run by ACH Colombia, the country's interbank network.

The shopper's experience looks like this: choose PSE, choose a bank, get redirected, log in, approve, usually with a two-factor code, and return to the merchant. The merchant never sees bank credentials. That redirect is the step to design around, since it is where shoppers drop off. Designing the instructions screen covers the PSE button and the waiting state.

Which Colombian payment options does a foreign business have?

Two for collecting and one for paying out. They do different jobs.

PSE fits a checkout because each payment is a fresh, one-time debit tied to one order, and it works for a business anywhere. A Bre-B virtual account is a permanent key that only customers with a Colombian document qualify for: Colombian individuals with a cédula and Colombian businesses with a NIT. On BlindPay, each deposit to that key creates a payin automatically at the live COP rate, with no quote, up to about COP 12,000,000 per deposit depending on the payer's bank. For larger amounts, use PSE.

What does a foreign business need to accept PSE?

Payer details, a way to show the PSE link, and a dollar destination for the funds. You do not need a Colombian bank account when a provider collects for you.

The payer details are strict. BlindPay validates their format on the payin quote:

• Full name, up to 50 characters.
• Document type, CC for an individual's cédula or NIT for a company.
• Document number.
• Email.
• Phone, +573 followed by 9 digits, for example +573001234567.
• Bank code of the shopper's bank, from a list you show in a dropdown.

Ask for these fields only after the shopper picks Colombia and PSE. Asking a Brazilian shopper for a NIT is how checkouts lose people.

How do you accept a PSE payment, step by step?

Seven steps from order to settled dollars.

1. Price the order in USD. The shopper chooses Colombia and PSE.
2. Collect the six payer fields. Validate the phone format in the browser.
3. Request a payin quote with payment_method: "pse" and the fields in payer_rules. The quote returns the COP amount, fees included if you set cover_fees to true, and locks it for 5 minutes.
4. Show the price in pesos, labeled with the currency code ("COP 143.113"), since a bare "$" reads as dollars.
5. Create the payin from the quote, with an Idempotency-Key tied to the order.
6. Open the PSE payment link from tracking_transaction.pse_instruction.payment_link. The shopper approves in their bank.
7. Wait for completion. When the payin completes, mark the order paid. The merchant now holds USD stablecoins.

Local currency pricing at checkout explains when to price in USD and show pesos, and when to price in pesos directly.

How do COP amounts and limits work?

COP moves in whole pesos and has a higher floor than other currencies.

• Whole units. A sender-denominated quote must be a multiple of 100 minor units, one whole peso. Computed amounts are rounded down to a whole peso.
• Minimum. BlindPay's COP payin minimum is 2,000 COP, far higher in raw units than USD or BRL because the peso's nominal value is smaller.
• Maximum. The quote enforces a ceiling per currency, and the receiver's per-transaction KYC limit can be lower. Read the error message instead of hardcoding a number.

When a quote fails a limit, show the error under the PSE option and let the shopper pick another method.

How long does a PSE payment take to settle?

Typically minutes after the shopper approves. The bank redirect adds variable time.

BlindPay's cut-off times reference lists PSE payin arrival at up to 10 minutes. BlindPay waits up to 30 minutes before marking a PSE payin failed, because the redirect and two-factor step can lag. On a development instance, payins complete by themselves about 30 seconds after creation, so test the real redirect in production before launch.

Fast collection at checkout also helps conversion in general. Stripe's test of 50+ payment methods found an average 7.4% conversion lift when businesses showed at least one relevant method beyond cards. PSE was not part of that test, so treat it as a direction, not a forecast for Colombia.

How does BlindPay handle PSE collection and Colombian payouts?

BlindPay collects pesos over PSE and settles to the merchant in USD stablecoins through one API. You build the checkout, and BlindPay moves the money.

A PSE payment starts with a payin quote that carries the six payer fields in payer_rules and locks the amount, fees, and destination for 5 minutes. With a receiver-denominated quote and cover_fees set to true, the merchant receives exactly the USD price and the shopper's COP amount includes fees and exchange. The payin response returns the PSE payment link, and a retrieved PSE payin carries pse_full_name, pse_tax_id, and pse_document_type for your records.

Status arrives by webhook: payin.new, payin.update, and payin.complete. Read the payin's status to confirm completion. Merchants with a Colombian NIT can also open a Bre-B virtual account, a permanent key where each deposit creates a payin automatically.

On the way out, pay Colombian sellers, suppliers, or refunds over ACH Colombia in about 1 business day, or withdraw the dollars to a US account over ACH, RTP, wire, or SWIFT (POBO/COBO). Merchant KYB and sanctions screening run in the flow.

Methodology and sources

External facts: PSE, ACH Colombia, and Stripe's test of 50+ payment methods (April 10, 2025). BlindPay facts come from the payins, payin quotes, payment methods, and cut-off times docs. For other Colombian routes into stablecoins, see USDC to COP in 2026 and how to on-ramp COP over PSE. Requirements for selling into Colombia vary by business type, so confirm them with your compliance counsel.

What to do next

Add Colombia to your checkout's country picker with PSE as its one method, and build the six-field payer form. Then create a PSE payin quote on a BlindPay development instance with the payin quickstart and follow it to completed.