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

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

#301

Post by 8bitbeep » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:19 PM UTC

souenzzo wrote: post #56

augusto-moura wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazilian Pix is free though, at least for the time being. IMO the biggest thing is not the money behind it, but the ability to track individual payments. Even that, I prefer the government to have that information, than some shady owner of a private company

PIX are free for persons. Companies may* pay for pix services. My bank (that is not a good bank) charges a fixed amount of 4 BRL (aprox 1 USD) per transaction (to send PIX. not to receive) PIX in "maquininhas" may cost ~1% to the seller. * may: banks are allowed to charge.

> 4 BRL (aprox 1 USD)

I wish. That's off by 50%

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

#302

Post by xfalcox » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #234

rpgbr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is way cheaper than credit/debit card charges from Visa and Mastercard.

And there's no surprise fraud claims.

My wife runs a small retail makeup shop on Shopify, which started before pix and those surprise false fraud claims almost killed the business.

Pix was such a game changer. It is perfect.

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

#303

Post by weinzierl » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:21 PM UTC

jowea wrote: post #265

auadix wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a permanent residence, but to use PIX you have to get an ID called CPF. This is your IRS number, as you said, tax number. It's easy to get but it takes time, you can have one as national from different country.

This is true but the next step is a Brazilian bank account.

Is there an online bank that allows to create an account just with the CPF and no proof of permanent residence?

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

#304

Post by dyingkneepad » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:23 PM UTC

djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #264

xinayder wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather let the Central Bank handle my instant payments, than Meta.

Why? Your own government can do a whole lot more to you than a foreign corporation.

Well, I can vote so that the thing my government does to me is something I want.

The foreign corporation will always be exclusively interested in doing things to me that generate revenue for them.

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

#305

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#306

Post by whimsicalism » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #294

DeathArrow wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Any european who happened to have become sick once in the US can tell you about that if you will.

i have friends who have had to deal with the NHS and absolutely ridiculous (like year+) wait times for specialists.

frankly i find the american healthcare system quite good if you have good job-tied insurance. most of the problems arise because we don’t have any sort of triage for high need issues and thus get overutilization and high cost.

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

#307

Post by owebmaster » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:25 PM UTC

A fun fact, one of the biggest PIX players is also the company that acquired Cognitec¹, the company behind Clojure and Datomic. Until not long ago, Rich Hickey was part of the staff².

1. https://building.nubank.com.br/pt-br/nubank-acquires-us-comp...

2. https://building.nubank.com.br/clojures-journey-at-nubank-a-...

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

#308

Post by RHSeeger » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:26 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #95

pjc50 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And quite a lot of Western ones like Vipps. And see this long list: https://truelayer.com/reports/alternative-payments/european-... > require ID, zero privacy, usually government sanctioned Unfortunately systems that don't have those requirements are going to be money laundering channels. I wish it wasn't such a big concern but it's unavoidable.

This is not a good argument. We can't forbid everything just because it can be used by criminals. By the same thinking we should forbid cash, too. We have two ways: Give up all freedoms, forbid anything and transform the society into a mass surveillance society where everyone spies everyone, where is no anonimity and no privacy. Or require law enforcement to do a better jobs without people giving up their freedoms.

There is a pretty big gray area in there. Literally every society on the planet has some form of "giving up their freedoms" in exchange for some amount of security. I would argue that it's impossible to have a stable society without that. The thing that's important is deciding which rights are worth protecting and which ones are ok to give up in exchange for security (or other reasons, presumably).

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

#309

Post by HeatrayEnjoyer » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:27 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #279

Xunjin wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.

I'd hate to see a system like that where I live, because the government will abuse it. We've already seen Canada freeze bank accounts of protestors, and US officials put protestors on the no fly list.

[flagged]

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

#310

Post by praseodym » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 3:33 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #220

palmotea wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

In The Netherlands, weather companies sued the national weather service because their new app was seen as competing with their interests, but they lost the court case (summary proceedings): https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati...