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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

economist.com

511–520 of 789 posts

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

#511

Do not put your money into Pix because Brazil's government has become extremely authoritarian and anti democratic, including jailing political opponents.

As far as I'm aware, Pix is just a way to transfer money. You do "put money" into Pix. Regarding the rest, I'm not following Brazilian politics that closely, but if politicians try to stop a democratic transition of power, then any functional democracy has to deal with them. I don't know how you can do that without doing things like jailing those who were involved. We can't do whatever we want and then call it politi…

> You do "put money" into Pix.

I meant to say "you don't" here.

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

#512
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can take cash from any country in the world to my local bank, and deposit it into my account. If you are at a institution bank, probably but that's a non-existent use case - I never had Argentinian Pesos, Turkish Lira or Bulgarian Lev I suddenly needed to deposit into my bank account !.. > Try to use cryptocurrency for anything other than a few very specific transactions at a number of places in the world so smal…

> that's the only way to do it without incurring huge transaction fees and / or long processing time. You're joking right? I just did a $25,000 wire internationally with a currency exchange in the middle and it cost $75. It went through in one business day. You'll get more hassle trying to withdraw from your exchange than that. When I bought my house and did the wire it cost $15. Where are you getting huge transactio…

Unless of course you try to transmit it to someplace your bank or the government doesn't like, or the bank has dumb AML controls. In which case the transaction will likely get held up if it can be sent at all. If you try to transfer from somewhere boring like from the USA to Canada of course you can send $25k no problem (most of the time anyway, my bank has interrogated me and locked up my account before for attempting to send $1500 to my wife until I gave up and just used cash).

Meanwhile you could transfer $25k in crypto to Dubai and walk away with it in cash at an OTC desk in an hour via a wallet to wallet.

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

#513

As a foreigner that visited Brazil for some weeks, I found the ubiquity of the PIX payment system to be a handicap for tourists visiting the country. PIX is only for locals as you need to register with a CPF (Brazil ID number which is hard and tedious to get as a tourist). I ran into many scenarios where the only option was to pay with PIX and the staff aren't used to tourists and look at you funny when you explain y…

Sounds similar to China / WeChat situation, from what I've read previously

It's now quite trivial to connect a foreign credit/debit card to Wepay, and it worked flawlessly on a recent trip. (This was very much not the case only a few years ago.)

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

#514
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, I can vote so that the thing my government does to me is something I want. You better hope that your interests closely align with those of millions of your compatriots. And that no one with political power has a personal vendetta against you.

>You better hope that your interests closely align with those of millions of your compatriots. corporation NEVER has my interests in mind, so coordinating millions is easier >And that no one with political power has a personal vendetta against you. same argument can be used with corporations

Those points are true, but a private corporation can't take away my life, liberty, or property under the threat of violence.

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

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps if you're driving, the things around you need to give you time to react to other things around you. Fewer things are more frustrating than getting honked at because you pressed a button, then got distracted by a car pulling up which you needed to look at to be aware of, then missed the printer asking if you want a receipt, and then having to press another button to talk to someone to ask for a reprint which,…

So you wrote this new scenario where the parking ticket machine does NOT print a ticket unless you confirm it (after you already pressed the button)? And you get... mildly inconvenienced by some honking. Yeah you shouldn't drive.

No, not printing the ticket isn't the scenario. Not printing the receipt for payment is the scenario.

It's not a new scenario. It happened to me.

I'm not mildly inconvenienced by some honking. That's just aggravating. I'm inconvenienced by having to call to get a receipt.

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

#517
post #495
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…

That's only controversial in the USA I guess. Here in France we know for a fact that government-run services are better than privately owned ones.

Says the national from a country that’s had at least 12 different government orders in its time, more than any other G20.

You really like government, you just can’t figure out what it ought to be or how to keep it.

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

#518
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…

Why is it that apps in the US are not as (overtly) commercialized or gamified (like Temu) as some of their chinese-counterparts? Is american culture just less tolerant of it? You would think there is more profit to be made by doing so which would be very capitalistic in a sense.

Because we have a Northern European streak in our heritage that is heavily against all that flashy casino style crud

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

#519
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should focus on getting rid of KYC, instead of giving up on privacy and security.

Indeed. KYC has a purpose though -- prevention of fraud, money laundering, etc. Getting rid of KYC without a similarly-effective solution for those things seems unlikely. Ideas?

Here’s an idea, get rid of cryptocurrencies and the need for KYC basically vanishes.

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

#520
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…

Why is it that apps in the US are not as (overtly) commercialized or gamified (like Temu) as some of their chinese-counterparts? Is american culture just less tolerant of it? You would think there is more profit to be made by doing so which would be very capitalistic in a sense.

> Is american culture just less tolerant of it?

Yes I think so. These flashy gamified things are considered kitsch. Designers here prefer lots of white space.

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