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

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

#521

Post by kaiwenwang » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:17 AM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #480

c7b wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By having central banks attached to these projects, it helps build a testbed so private sector players can then extend on. Again, you can get all of that without needing a CBDC, just have the central bank build and run a regular payment system. It gets substantially more complex once you make it a CBDC, making the chance of success even smaller. For what gain? You actually introduce some tangible risks for the fina…

I'm not disagreeing with you. CBDCs are dumb from a financial standpoint. > Again, you can get all of that without needing a CBDC Yep. Pretty much. > For what gain? Because if X country is doing it, Y country should do it as well, and then export the associated infra to a less developed country. By the 2020s, it became a completion between Chinese vs Indian consultancies (ay least in Africa) You have to remember the…

Hello, the things you're talking about (previous comments, not just this) are interesting career-wise. If I studied Computer Science (long-term I do not see myself programming forever) and only have internships related in that area, how would you recommend getting into this field?

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

#522

Post by vitorgrs » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:18 AM UTC

seydor wrote: post #317

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…

What about tax evading people? Is the system used to tax audit people?

it works like any other bank transfer, so yes. But the bank only reports after a certain amount.

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

#523

Post by postsantum » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:23 AM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #207

jowea wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm thanking the government for saving us from yet another Facebook monopoly thorough first mover advantage and network effects.

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.

Literally 1984. Literally!

Meanwhile in reality: soory, out services are not available anymore because your goverment did a hecking bad thing and we don't like it. And we are taking the rest of your money btw

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

#524

Post by alephnerd » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:34 AM UTC

kaiwenwang wrote: post #521

alephnerd wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing with you. CBDCs are dumb from a financial standpoint. > Again, you can get all of that without needing a CBDC Yep. Pretty much. > For what gain? Because if X country is doing it, Y country should do it as well, and then export the associated infra to a less developed country. By the 2020s, it became a completion between Chinese vs Indian consultancies (ay least in Africa) You have to remember the…

Hello, the things you're talking about (previous comments, not just this) are interesting career-wise. If I studied Computer Science (long-term I do not see myself programming forever) and only have internships related in that area, how would you recommend getting into this field?

> If I studied Computer Science (long-term I do not see myself programming forever) and only have internships related in that area, how would you recommend getting into this field?

Just keep studying CS. Climb up the ladder to Staff SWE, PM, or EM; and execute and lose hair from there.

As Pastuer said, "fortune favors a prepared mind". Most hot thinkers today were hetrodox a couple years ago.

You make more money remaining in tech and then switching in your late 20s to late 30s into policy. You can also make more realistic and less ideological policies that way. If you have a protonmail, let's catch up.

But tbh, the policy space sucks. It's not worth it (in DC, Beijing, London, or Delhi). If you are smart and lucky enough to break into policy but are also someone who's Mom and Dad don't have a liquid net worth below $750,000-1M in all those countries, you won't make it irrespective of country.

Class breaks all nationalistic barriers, and public school class people like you and I won't make it without luck or money (and we can make the latter in the private sector)

P.S. love your blog. Similar boat.

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

#525

Post by FearNotDaniel » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:36 AM UTC

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #483

toomuchtodo wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80 countries have instant/real time payment systems today [1], and the Bank for International Settlements is working on cross border interoperability [2]. Cryptocurrencies will likely never go away, and will remain in use for certain use cases from a cross border value transfer perspective, similar to gold; either the token moves or the ownership is updated. More interesting is offering digital wallets for a single o…

On top of that, the BIS isnt even needed for global real time payments. A company like Wise (formerly transferwise) or any similar entity can just hold accounts in each country and if the local settlement is real time they can also do real time global settlement by just updating their db and sending the money real time in the receiving location.

> Wise (formerly transferwise)

Off-topic, but: this is possibly one of the world's dumbest rebranding exercises. I forget now how many years ago they made the change, but I've never heard anyone outside the company itself refer to it as just "Wise" without adding "(formerly transferwise)".

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

#526

Post by nostromo » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:39 AM UTC

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…

In the US your weather app is effectively government run.

Your iPhone skins the government data and makes it pretty. Nobody is selling your location or information. And you can always get the data directly if you want.

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

#527

Post by vitorgrs » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:44 AM UTC

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…

100% this. My (BR) state have a weather service¹, it's amazing. What people don't realize, it's that the service isn't just made for normal people see if is gonna rain, it's that the service is fundamental for agriculture and farmers. So they have radars, frosts alerts, specifically tailored to farmers as well.

It's also used to give alerts to electricity companies, etc...

Their weather prediction, it's just way better than any other service.

There's also national service, run by CPTEC/INMET, but they are lacking funding IMO...

[1] https://simepar.br

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

#528

Post by jacooper » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:46 AM UTC

This like a public-run PayPal alternative. Other countries have moved beyond this, Saudi Arabia for example created Mada, it's alternative for visa and mastercard. They take close to nothing on transactions, and that's how the government could enforce card payments everywhere.

And the cards are hybrids, they support both visa (or mastercard) and mada.

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

#529

Post by hunglee2 » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:47 AM UTC

“Now we live in a democracy, but imagine if this existed under an autocracy and all your information was available to the government,”

the belief that democracy is some sort of bulwark against government surveillance is mindbogglingly naive

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

#530

Post by vitorgrs » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

thisissomething wrote: post #161

afarah1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp Pay is available today in Brazil. The official reason for blocking the launch was missing paperwork, but word on the street at the time was that it was to favor Pix. This is all mentioned in the Retuers article. The reasons for favoring Pix are left for one to speculate. You say national security, the other says financial surveillance and control over the population. Time will tell.

With everything that Pix offers but WhatsApp Pay doesn't, I don't think WhatsApp Pay would hold a candle even if it were launched before.

Yeah, there was already alternatives before pix, like PicPay/Mercado Pago, and Pix just "killed" them (people still use to be clear, but just as a normal payment app)