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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

economist.com

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Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#61

Post by miltava »

m00dy wrote: post #19
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance. Pix can't facilitate cross-border micro payments.

That’s true for the moment, specially because you’d need an agreement between both countries.

But payment processors in Brazil are already offering “international pix”, that Brazilians can use to pay foreign companies. It’s the same experience as pix for the customer but behind the scenes the company deals with the cross border payment.

There are even stores accepting pix in Portugal: https://www.publico.pt/2025/01/23/publico-brasil/noticia/pix...

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#62

Post by earnesti »

SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

Can you elaborate on the technicals? Is it a phone app? Does it work through QR codes or NFC? Is there a Pix "card"?

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#63

Post by cubefox »

Theortically it would now be possible to implement a similar service in the US using FedNow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow

Of course in practice it is a chicken-egg situation. Few people will use it over established credit based systems unless there are other incentives.

Credit card companies, including PayPal & Co, are essentially rent seeking: They are middle men that technologically aren't needed anymore for instant cashless payments, but they still exist because they can extract enormous amounts of profits via fees. But countries like Brazil and India show that they can be replaced with free or almost free systems based on instant bank transfers.

It's true that credit cards still have the use case of providing a "chargeback" service. But this isn't possible with ordinary cash either. Moreover, most people likely buy online from trustworthy shops like Amazon, so this isn't often a problem in practice. In expectation people spend way more money on credit card fees than they ever save with chargeback. Chargeback is like an overly expensive insurance that hardly anybody needs.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#64

Post by seszett »

yetihehe wrote: post #18
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

> I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic. After I had to add a special animation for one email system so that user was sure that "the core functionality of encrypting" was indeed working (it took milliseconds in reality), your experience doesn't surprise me that much. But, in my "IoT" system we have a mix of device…

The parking ticket machine might make things deliberately slow because the printer needs to warm up or something.

Maybe it needs up to 5 seconds to warm up if it's in deep sleep, so splitting this into three 2s periods provides the least frustrating user experience.

As soon as you need to deal with real hardware things always start to get complicated.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#65

Post by DeathArrow »

SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

>Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

They protect against tracking and provide anonimity. That might be valuable.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#66

Post by kevincox »

ryandrake wrote: post #49
forty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it much more worrying than having Visa being able to do that? Especially when you see how the US is going downhill, I think it'd rather take the risk of having to deal with hypothetical local fascist state.

There’s pretty much no practical difference between Visa knowing all this stuff and the government knowing it. All Visa’s data is at most one subpoena away and that’s the optimistic scenario.

Of course there is a difference the other way. With a government run payment system only the government knows it. Not the government and some for-profit corporation.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#67

Post by koyote »

So this sounds just like PayID in Australia or what was payM in the UK (which got shut down a couple of years ago due to lack of use), minus the QR code generation part.

It's used between private people to make it easier to send money to one another without having to type in bank account details, but never really used to pay businesses (except under the table).

How come this is so popular in Brasil for paying businesses vs using a card or your phone to tap and pay (which seems more convenient)?

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#68

Post by DeathArrow »

earnesti wrote: post #62
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

Can you elaborate on the technicals? Is it a phone app? Does it work through QR codes or NFC? Is there a Pix "card"?

>Can you elaborate on the technicals? Is it a phone app?

Isn't paying with some phone apps the default in China? And I think transferring using phone apps has some success in Africa, too.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#69

Post by salomonk_mur »

DeathArrow wrote: post #65
SwiftyBug wrote: post #8

I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years. Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use. Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be ama…

>Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance. They protect against tracking and provide anonimity. That might be valuable.

For 0.001% of the population.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#70

Post by souenzzo »

marcodiego wrote: post #14

I'm a Brazilian. Everything here can be paid through pix. It's very convenient, fast reliable and, for a country like ours where walking on the streets with money is a risk, safe. There's only one reason I don't use it: there's no FLOSS app (AFAIK) to use it. Something as common as the dominant payment system should not depend on proprietary software.

Do you use/recommend any FOSS payment system?

I could not find any VISA foss software.

if there is any payment system that MAY be FOSS in the future, it is PIX. Not apple wallet.

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