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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

#111

Post by DanielHB »

trollbridge wrote: post #10

Standard workflow in Brazil: - You need to buy something from person XZ, whether an individual, small business, or huge business. - XZ sends you an invoice (including relevant taxes). - You pay the invoice. XZ knows you’ve paid. - At year end you can download all your invoices, including any taxes already paid, for doing your taxes. (Brazil taxes make American taxation look simple.) Standard workflow in America: - “D…

- At year end you can download all your invoices, including any taxes already paid, for doing your taxes. (Brazil taxes make American taxation look simple.)

I disagree, although it is VERY complex the US system is much worse. At least the Brazillian one you don't need to pay for an application (TurboTax & similars) to file your taxes.

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

#112

Post by xinayder »

rebanevapustus wrote: post #99
bestouff wrote: post #5

> Pix has spiced up Brazil’s fusty banking sector, but it gives the central bank a worrying amount of power I think a largely prefer a government-run payment system than an US company monopoly.

The Brazilian government is a *very* corrupt authoritarian oligarchy. I would take any US company over that any day.

Yet we, a developing "third-world" country, have a better functioning payment system than the US, where it takes days, or even weeks, for a wire transfer to land, and you pay a huge amount of fees for that.

Cases in point:

- To transfer money to a broker, I need to pay around $5 in transfer fees via ACH or wire

- I want to change the custody of my stock market assets from one broker to another, and it will cost me $75 to move $60 worth of shares. Meanwhile, in Brazil, this process is free in every broker.

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

#113

Post by pjc50 »

seszett wrote: post #64
yetihehe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

More likely it's warming up the mobile comms state machine, without checking if it's actually needed. Unlike mobile phones which try to keep their data connection somewhat live, IoT things often drop back to the lowest state to save power (and possibly SIM cost)

https://www.sharetechnote.com/html/Handbook_UMTS_RrcStateCha...

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

#114

Post by DeathArrow »

oulipo wrote: post #13
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…

Interestig, but this is also worrying to know that the government now knows exactly what you bought, where, when, and for how much. They can also (if there's a rogue government) create fake transactions to implicate you in things you haven't done

If you pay with Google Wallet or Apple Pay it's a corporation what you bought, when and where. And since Google knows your location and has access to your mail, social media and everything on your phone, they can connect more dots.

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

#115

Post by felipc »

Pix has really spurred up small local businesses. It's so much easier to buy digitally from local stores now, or even just a person starting up a business because it required no setup, no fees or anything.

If I need to buy a gift for someone from a store at the mall, for example, I just text them, they send me pictures with the options, I pay instantly via pix and they send the product through local delivery. The whole thing takes 5 minutes of my time and the purchase shows up on my door in 30 minutes. I saved on time, gas and parking, and meanwhile the store made a sale through a local employee instead of me buying online from their national franchise for example (if it's a franchise of course). Win win for everyone.

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

#117

Post by badocr »

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"?

It's a functionality of banking apps. Yes, transfers are done either via a QR code or via one or more "Pix Keys", that the person/bussiness authorizes in their baking app. These keys can be the brazilian equivalent of your SSN, a cell phone number, an e-mail address or a randomly generated UUID-formated one.

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

#118

Post by pjc50 »

homebrewer wrote: post #110
DeathArrow wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I used Alipay (which is an Android application where you add a debit or credit card) for absolutely everything when I was there in October of last year. Sure seemed like everyone else was using it too. Except for Hong Kong, they have their own thing. I just used Google pay there.

Does HK still have Octopus? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card

I remember encountering that before London launched Oyster, probably inspired by it. Worked in station vending machines as well as for tickets.

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

#119

Post by xinayder »

DanielHB wrote: post #55

Sweden has had a similar system for several years before PIX in Brazil. It is also integrated with the digital ID system (BankID). The main difference is that the Swedish system is ran through a private organization managed by all the major banks (and the central bank) in conjunction. So the central bank doesn't have direct access to the transaction data technically. While the Brazilian system is only interacted dire…

This is the difference in Brazil. Because it's ran by the Central Bank, there are some fraud protections. For example, if you receive money by mistake, you have the option to return a transfer to the original sender. And if you don't do that almost immediately, the sender can actually sue you and get the bank to revert the transaction (once proven you've deliberately chosen to not return the money).

There are also other security features tailored for the crime aspect of Brazil (since some people argue Pix increased the number of flash robberies); you can limit how much money you can transfer via Pix during day and night time, and even request a second confirmation before the transfer actually goes through. And if you prove you've been robbed, the bank can easily revert the transaction and you can get your money back.

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

#120

Post by ave_b_2011 »

xinayder wrote: post #112
rebanevapustus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brazilian government is a *very* corrupt authoritarian oligarchy. I would take any US company over that any day.

Yet we, a developing "third-world" country, have a better functioning payment system than the US, where it takes days, or even weeks, for a wire transfer to land, and you pay a huge amount of fees for that. Cases in point: - To transfer money to a broker, I need to pay around $5 in transfer fees via ACH or wire - I want to change the custody of my stock market assets from one broker to another, and it will cost me $7…

I don’t understand this binary. The UK was able to create a near-instant bank transfer system without monopolizing in the same way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments

It costing more for instant transfers is just a regressive tax on the working poor.

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