Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by TrackerFF » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #135

TrackerFF wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a realistic option in the US, at least in the current climate. There are so many powerful and influential anti/small-government that are rabidly opposing anything made by the government, and offered to the people. The argument is always the same: - "It will stifle innovation" - "It is unfair to business" - "It will make people dependent on the government" - "It will give government more access to…

>For decades the American people have been told that anything the government touches will be expensive, inefficient, and lead to a more taxes. Private sector knows best, and all that. Do you have some counter arguments?

Well, every municipal broadband service I've tried has been better than the laughable garbage some ISPs offer out in rural areas, where they have a monopoly.

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

#182

Post by notpushkin » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #165

notpushkin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a Russian tourist in Vietnam can use Mir If you can find a place that actually accepts it! It’s certainly not as ubiquitous as the local Napas247 QR codes.

Yep! And Napas247 was co-developed by Vietnam and South Korea (edit: Only VN - confused Shinhan's support for development work)! The point is there is a steady decoupling towards non-Visa/MC payment systems outside the US and EU, and it wouldn't be too surprising if a number of these systems begin supporting inter-operability within the next 10 years.

Oh yeah, I think lots of QR code based systems in Asia are actually interoperable now (just not if you’re not a resident in any of these countries — e.g. I do have GCash, but my account works in Philippines only).

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

#183

Post by wink » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

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…

How recent is Swish adoption? Some Swedes I knew back in 2013-2018 seemed to mostly use Visa/MC at home.

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

#184

Post by anal_reactor » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

yetihehe wrote: post #143

pjc50 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

More likely it was written by some cheap interns and requires getting unique ticket id from server for "controlling" purposes. Then there is one part time employee (met him, small talked a little) who goes from car to car with terminal and checks if those tickets are valid. I have some experience with gprs systems here, so probable flow: - press button - gprs roundtrip about button press with "no payment, free ticket…

More likely a parking machine needs to be accessible to all users, and some people get confused when technology works too fast.

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

#185

Post by DanielHB » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:23 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #127

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…

I work in Swiss banking. We also have such a system for payments. Its very popular and used by most people. I keep saying they should use it as SSO, if you can authenticate payments you damn well can authenticate login requests. It makes no sense to go to an online shop, log-in with your shop account or google, and then when you pay, authenticate the payment with TWINT. And banks could even use it to login to their e…

Yes BankID is the real MVP of digital systems, I heard some talks about the EU making one valid for the whole block. Hopefully it will fix all the countries.Everything is done through BankID in swedish-only institutions.

Put house on sale? bankid. Book a doctor appointment? bankid. Login to bank? Bankid. Open bank account? bankid. Sign contracts? bankid.

Heck I moved my pension (like a lot of money) to a different institution by just using BankID. Didn't have to call/email anyone, the process took 5 minutes (with about a month to actually process the transaction).

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

#186

Post by Deukhoofd » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:25 PM UTC

dguest wrote: post #60

kubb wrote: post #17

Sometimes there's no point in having market solutions. You need one thing that works for everyone and is free. It's cheaper and easier this way.

The worst is a market facade for a government service. Examples in the US: - Weather apps: various governments do the (very expensive) computing and provide the data for free. Private companies insert adds, or charge you. I use Yr, which is run by Norway and has no adds or fees. They are just sourcing public data [1]. - Taxes: the government does all the bookkeeping and enforcement, tax prep industry copies and paste…

We had the same in The Netherlands. Several weather apps that requested to share all your data with a bunch of partners, had ads, etc.

Then our national weather institute launched their own app without tracking or ads, and the existing weather apps all immediately joined up to sue them over it. Thankfully they lost the case.

https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati...

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

#187

Post by carlosjobim » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:26 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #114

oulipo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google is not going to put me in a concentration camp, enslave me, or send me to die in a trench on the front lines.

(If you're reading this, please note this comment was written in 2025)

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

#188

Post by Y_Y » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:27 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #150

Y_Y wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so not really cross border except from a certain legalistic angle Is this a joke? Of course it's cross-border, it crosses international borders. It works because the countries involved put in the work to make it easy. The fact that you can't use Pix in the US has no bearing.

> The fact that you can't use Pix in the US has no bearing. The comment I replied to was claiming Bizum operating "cross border" showed that Pix could do so, so it is very much relevant in context. It is a very special case of cross border. It is technically cross border but does not have the difficulties of cross border in all of the rest of the world outside the EU. In any case it is arguable whether these are sepa…

The United Nations has a flag and anthem too.

The umbrella interoperability initiative that includes Bizum is Swiss (neither EU nor Eurozone).

Maybe you have a radical viewpoint, or maybe you're just unfamiliar with the subject matter, but individual EU countries are very much separate entities, notwithstanding many helpful treaties.

There are lots of transnational entities like the EU and monetary unions like the Eurozone.

There's nothing so special about this arrangement that means it couldn't happen elsewhere.

https://empsa.org/news/leading-european-mobile-payment-solut...

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

#189

Post by Propelloni » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #57

simgt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is also worrying to know that the government now knows exactly what you bought, where, when, and for how much As a citizen of a still kind-of-functioning democracy, I'd happily make the trade if that means Apple, Google, Visa or Mastercard don't have the information anymore.

I don't think you've thought that through - fascists and communists both have more control over the institutions of democracy than they do over those companies. The banking companies generally don't want to be involved in anything ideological except moneymaking.

What "institutions of democracy" would that be, if the state is fascist or communist? And I think you severly underestimate the reach a totalitarian state has. Hint: it is total.

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

#190

Post by squigz » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:32 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #135

TrackerFF wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a realistic option in the US, at least in the current climate. There are so many powerful and influential anti/small-government that are rabidly opposing anything made by the government, and offered to the people. The argument is always the same: - "It will stifle innovation" - "It is unfair to business" - "It will make people dependent on the government" - "It will give government more access to…

>For decades the American people have been told that anything the government touches will be expensive, inefficient, and lead to a more taxes. Private sector knows best, and all that. Do you have some counter arguments?

Making an assertion without arguments does not necessitate counter arguments.