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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

#401

Post by dkkergoog »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #363
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. Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil - it's not even used in other Mercosur countries, what's the chance of having that adopted in other countries... And, that's problem #1. How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption - maybe people are naive but governments won't unify to adopt a common system cont…

[dead]

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

#402

Post by gloomyday »

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.

That is such an inane opinion by the author. I wonder if he/she knows central banks can literally print money. Helping to move it around is nothing, and benefits everyone.

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

#403

Post by birdflyinghigh »

Before PIX there was TED which worked normal but you usually had to wait up to 3 hours to clear the transfer. Now because of the offload caused by PIX every single transfer you make through TED takes up to 10 minutes, usually 2, but noone cares. The look of happiness people have when they scan qr-code is the same of that kid that just got an ice cream. The reason why Pix was adopted so rapidly, and is so omnipresent, is because of ease of use. You scan the QR-code and that's it, transaction completed. Nobody mentioned that half of users is unable to figure out how to get started with pix, that is register keys, so they ask some techie parents, friends or go to the financial institution to get them started. Before most people that were inept to type in few necessary numbers to complete a transfer from one bank to the other, now switched to Pix and all they have to do is give the phone number or tax ID and are ready to receive money or scan qr-code to sent it out.

Because of that there is a total inclusion and also utter surveillance. So now in Brazil there are 2 problems, 60-80% of financial transactions are processed by the government and to add to the damage the entire economy is run on one point of failure which is WhatsApp. If at the same time, 2 of them would stopped, let's say for 3 weeks or maybe less, entire COUNTRY would do down the drain.

All the alternatives are fading away, lots of people don't even know how to change a ringtone on the phone but know how to do everything through WhatsApp. Try to ask, not even demand, in random business to provide you with alternatives for contact, you'd get that look saying GTFOOH. If pix would stopped, people would not go to atm to withdraw money, they'd wait until it'd come back online. When WhatsApp stops for few hours it feels like Sunday morning before the picnic.

Government+meta=success story of Brazil

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

#404

Post by carlosjobim »

jowea wrote: post #251
carlosjobim wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to hear your words loyalty and patriotism, dear citizen! I will contact your local commissar and make sure he increases your social credit score by 5 points. But we must also be realistic if we want to win against our eternal enemy Eastasia, and admit that Facebook coin would never be a monopoly because Visa, Mastercard and cash exist.

Thanks, maybe someday I will finally be promoted to Internet Shill First Class. But seriously, it would still be a monopoly on the UPI-like segment. Visa and Mastercard charge fees that make them less attractive to some users and make it harder on some users. There are good reasons Pix replaced much of physical cash use that cards didn't. And Visa and Mastercard are also American companies. Don't they sell transactio…

Visa and Mastercard are agents for the customer, who benefits greatly from instant and convenient transactions, fraud protection, currency conversion, and credit lines. The merchant pays them for access to these customers, and I have to say that the fees are small for what an amazing service these networks provide. I don't think neither their fees nor their profits are outrageous.

While Pix is a very impressive system, they offer no benefit to the customer over credit/debit cards. Only benefits to the merchants. For inter-personal transactions it is great, and for micro businesses. But as soon as your business grows beyond that, you will want to accept card payments.

If Visa and Mastercard sell transaction data, can you point me to where I can purchase this data? Everybody is saying this is the case, but forgive me for having doubts. Is this what you are talking about? https://usa.visa.com/solutions/visa-commercial-data-solution...

From what I understand, they are selling data in the aggregate, not individual transactions.

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

#405

Post by xethos »

nicce wrote: post #9
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.

Payment systems take huge fees. It is always good if they get back to the country and not elsewhere. Digital paying is something fundamental. Like electricity.

Fast, free, and frictionless payments allow the economy to run better. That's better for the government and the people. Only corporations like Visa and Mastercard lose.

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

#406

Post by mixmastamyk »

leereeves wrote: post #385
mixmastamyk wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The govt already has full access to your bank account! Always did and KYC ended privacy. Preventing convenient payment technology only hurts the rest of us. If you want redundancy buy gold coins.

You're comparing Pix to bank transfers. I'm comparing Pix to cash.

Cash still exists, as well as the gold mentioned. Barter, haha. Didn't advocate against those.

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

#407

Post by ethbr1 »

dakial1 wrote: post #393
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance. Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil - it's not even used in other Mercosur countries, what's the chance of having that adopted in other countries... And, that's problem #1. How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption - maybe people are naive but governments won't unify to adopt a common system cont…

Pix proposition is very valuable for governments, as it is the best way of controlling transactions, inside the country and cross-border. To you second point, I think the pix penetration/popularity proves that the majority of the people trust the government for that. There are 2 key reasons for its success: It was mandatory for Banks to adhere to the system and there are no fees for using it. Once multiple countries…

iTunes / Steam vs piracy is relevant here.

Most people want something that works well in the ways they care about.

People turned to piracy because it was a superior experience to the then-distribution-models.

Then, the majority of people didn't care that iTunes / Steam cost money and had DRM, because it provided a superior experience to piracy.

People want an outcome, easily, reliably: they don't care about the method of getting that outcome.

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

#408

Post by NicuCalcea »

strobe wrote: post #299
NicuCalcea wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be valuable for a minority of people, but it is an active detriment for most. I want to know where my money is going, and I want my bank to be able to get it back in case of theft or fraud.

at same time you don't wanna to ask bank for permission to spend your money every time: "Can I buy some milk today? No!, let's visit our branch first and give some papers which will require significant time/effort to get for you." Most just not experiencing things like this but once that happen it is hard to ignore this possibility.

I do want permission from my bank, actually. Of course not for milk, but for a car or house, for sure.

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

#409

Post by archagon »

whimsicalism wrote: post #306
littlestymaar wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From personal experience, the quality of your insurance has little to do with wait times. I had best-in-biz FAANG insurance and I still had to wait months for dermatology and ENT appointments, for example.

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

#410

Post by Vilian »

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 mean, the bank can be a fraud protection, inter for example ask for a monthly payment for security, not sure how good tho
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