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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

#531

Post by matheusmoreira »

dkga wrote: post #474
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.

Control over the population? That's some conspiracy theory.

Nothing stops the government from blocking your Pix transactions on a whim. They can just turn off your money whenever they want. They can confiscate your money any time if they want. They can do pretty much anything.

Conspiracy theory? It's cyberpunk stuff, the likes of which we see in fiction. Only it's not fiction. We're watching the whole thing unfold right before our very eyes.

I remember watching videos of people at events from many years ago. They warned us all about this stuff, explored all the possible consequences. It's pretty bleak. And now I'm living in this reality, the knowledge of the danger weighs down on me every day where I have to use the system. And people like you come here and calls us conspiracy theorists.

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

#532

Post by vitorgrs »

Galatians4_16 wrote: post #125

Despite a global move towards a cashless society, 54% of Brazilians now opt for cash withdrawals.¹ 2024 has seen a surprising reversal, as cash usage makes an unexpected comeback , defying predictions that the world was moving toward a cashless society. With rising cybersecurity threats, concerns over financial privacy, and economic instability, consumers and businesses are increasingly turning back to physical curre…

I wouldn't trust this data. You realize the first link you send, is a data from DATAFOLHA, a private pollster. And the one who paid for the poll, was a ATM company (TecBan)?

Pix is still doing record of transactions, every month.

https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/12/23/pix-bate-re...

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

#533

Post by robocat »

Brazil government should open Pix to tourists in South America.

I would loved to have used it in Argentina & Brazil.

I tried to find a way to use Pix as a tourist (I'm from New Zealand). It would have been really super handy in Argentina tourist destinations (lots of Brazilian tourists so Pix accepted). Argentina was so painful for transactions I ended up buying Argentine Pesos using crypto. Argentina missed out on thousands of dollars export income from me because I hated their payment bullshit so much that I just left Argentina and went to Brazil instead (with different shenanigans). Turned out I enjoyed Brazil more too (great people).

I also wanted to use crypto because it is such challenging fun to play with using it for money (versus speculating), plus I wanted to learn how to manage the risks of using crypto (so I was willing to pay spreads and risk losses; since I highly valued educating myself).

One American I met had taken thousands of USD in cash to Argentina because blue dollar exchange rate (cambio / cuevas) to gain much better ARS per USD than other ways to pay as a US tourist. More reliable too (I had a few problems paying by card which sucked).

South American governments charge expensive fees and have crappy exchange rates to withdraw their money from ATMs: foolish foolish foolish dickhead governments. I hated their greed so much I just won't return to Argentina (goodbye 10x - 100x the export income versus the gains they nicked from me). Plus ATM limits to withdrawal well below a couple of hundred NZD (or USD) so I couldn't withdraw enough cash to spend - just damn retarded - print some more ya fools. Result is I'll warn friends against travelling to some South American countries (especially Argentina). Tourists are fickle - treat them fairly and make it easy for them to spend money, or they'll visit a different country that cares about earning export income. New Zealand has heaps of tourists so I know both sides of the equation (Overseas visitor arrivals to New Zealand totalled 3.3 million in the 2024 year; with a population of 5 million).

I really really loved Brazilians - I'd return ASAP if Chilean LATAM airlines didn't dominate costs (USD1600).

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

#534

Post by 1024core »

I was in Mexico City recently, and boy did I hate rummaging around for cash to make payments. True, many places accept credit cards, but that seems like an unnecessary tax on the merchant (credit cards charge nearly 3% in fees).

A system like Pix (or UPI from India) would be a godsend for Mexico. However, any such system should have support for tourists (non-residents visiting the country briefly).

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

#535

Post by vitorgrs »

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…

Banco Rendimento, maybe.

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

#536

Post by neves »

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…

I trust Visa and Mastercard with my money! A government is a lot safer!

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

#537

Post by koyote »

pjc50 wrote: post #134
koyote wrote: post #67

So this sounds just like PayID in Australia or what was payM in the UK (which got shut down a couple of years ago due to lack of use), minus the QR code generation part. It's used between private people to make it easier to send money to one another without having to type in bank account details, but never really used to pay businesses (except under the table). How come this is so popular in Brasil for paying busines…

> payM in the UK (which got shut down a couple of years ago due to lack of use) I'd never even heard of this! Certainly never seen anyone offering it. Guess it got run over by lack of state capacity during Brexit etc. > paying businesses vs using a card or your phone to tap and pay These schemes (izettle etc) have higher costs. The poorer the country the more significant a low-cost business TX option is.

I remember most banks having it when it first came out, I used it a couple of times to pay friends but few people knew about it.

It was pretty simple and worked well, especially compared to having to give bank account details.

That being said, I am in Australia now which has a similar system and I'd say 95% of my friends just give me the bank details instead of saying 'just use PayId with my phone number'.

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

#538

Post by unstatusthequo »

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…

I don't understand the willingness of the masses to willingly give governments complete access to all of their transaction data. At least in the U.S. bank transactions are feebly masked by institutions. I have no doubt the government gets bank transaction data, but with Pix, it's just making it even easier to monitor what you're doing. Is it that the transparency makes it feel good? No middleman selling it or giving the facade of private transactions?

I do not see how this is better than cryptocurrency, which, while not fully anonymous aside from Monero, is at least decentralized.

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

#539

Post by neves »

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.

Maybe you can if the main use of a coin is for ransomware or drug traficking

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

#540

Post by matheusmoreira »

throwaway473825 wrote: post #229
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…

>have no fees Both Swish and BankID have fees. After all, they're run by for-profit corporations. Those apps also reduce competition in the banking sector since they're controlled by a few banks which generally have very high fees on their other services. What's even worse, since BankID is private, there's no individual right to get it, and I've personally experienced banks abusing their oligopoly (buy this extra ser…

> What's even worse, since BankID is private, there's no individual right to get it

Nothing stops people from making it a right.

Brazilians have that right. Everyone can get a free checking account with transfers and Pix at every bank. They still try to sell us "service packages" but the idea of paying a fractional reserve bank any amount of money is just stupid if not abusive. They should be paying us for the privilege of having our money deposited into their reserves, not the other way around.

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