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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

#211

Post by noman-land »

xenospn wrote: post #175
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…

Brazil is amazing. I bought a coconut from an old man who was walking barefoot on the beach using my phone.

Why was he using your phone?

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

#213

Post by jowea »

harrisoned wrote: post #104

I agree its an amazing payment method, it worked for me for most of the time. Still, we depend on bank's stability and technical availability for it to work. Once i needed to pay for something and forgot my card at home, at that same time my bank was going trough technical issues and i couldn't pay. Despite rare reliability issues, my fear about it is that it requires a phone. Being so popular, i fear when places wil…

I think almost everywhere will still accept debit cards, at least until paying by Pix becomes faster.

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

#214

Post by jowea »

lukev wrote: post #129

Pix is super interesting. I have two questions to which Google wasn't able to provide quick answers: 1. Is there an easy way for a US resident to sign up for a Pix-enabled account (e.g. at a Brazilian bank?) 2. Can Pix be used easily for online payments? If both are true, it seems like it could be used as a drop-in replacement to crypto for small-value transactions which are currently infeasible in the US due to tran…

1. I'm not sure but I'm gonna guess no. Aren't Americans notoriously hard to offer banking services to due to anti-money laundering regulations?

2. Yes, it's quite easy

Wasn't the Fed going to launch their own take on UPI with FedNow?

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

#215

Post by palmotea »

nirui wrote: post #206

I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same ques…

> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China.

After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run.

For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on government data anyway. It'd be much better the government roll out an API and an app that uses it, so you can avoid the private sector altogether.

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

#216

Post by forinti »

Brazil was in constant economic chaos in the 80s and 90s, so the banking system invested a lot in automation and communications.

I actually think it took too long for Pix to be invented. The piping was all there. Somebody just had to have the idea.

Even in the 80s you could easily transfer from any bank to any other bank.

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

#217

Post by derelicta »

palmotea wrote: post #215
nirui wrote: post #206

I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same ques…

> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…

It's funny but I always had assumed all countries had their own state-owned weather services, until I found out there was no such thing in Germany.

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

#218

Post by carlosjobim »

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.

The money is, of course, not open source, so there will never be any FLOSS app for it.

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

#219

Post by chneu »

palmotea wrote: post #215
nirui wrote: post #206

I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same ques…

> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…

That's exactly why NOAA in the US is under attack. Conservatives see $$$ potential if they privatize it.

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

#220

Post by cubefox »

palmotea wrote: post #215
nirui wrote: post #206

I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. Due to it's commercial origin, Alipay is filled with unwanted ads and traps. Almost every time I made a payment with it, a pop up prompts me to enlist their Ant Financial LOAN service either now, or being prompted for the same ques…

> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…

I believe in Germany the national weather service in fact rolled out such an app, but was then stopped by a court because this counted as unfair competition with private entities.
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