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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

#601

Post by jalapenos »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #441
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…

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…

"Certain use cases", yes

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

#604

Post by jalapenos »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #525
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)".

Followed by gross new brand styling

Could've at least gone with calling themselves "Wise.com" or something, like "Make.com" does.

Got nothing on "X" though. Have yet to hear someone in person say "on X" rather than "on Twitter".

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

#605

Post by blackoil »

cosmaioan wrote: post #136

It is interesting that I did no see in the comments the costs of using Mastercard & Visa as a reason for governments to find alternatives for their economies. Both Visa and MC are US companies so there is where the profits go .... From US Senate hearing : "This is classic, classic monopolistic behavior. Yet you're testimony...is you don't want any competition...I'm having a hard time finding that position defensible,…

I think more than cost; it is more a desire for sovereignty and also making everything trackable. As happened in Russia, US govt can block Mastercard/Visa from the country or can block a company like Huawei and local govt has no say in it.

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

#606

Post by blackoil »

alephnerd wrote: post #7
vithalreddy wrote: post #3

Same with India's UPI https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/upi-ecosystem-statist...

Tiger Global, Seqouia, and Khosla Ventures invested in a lot of Brazilian fintech and neobank startups in the early/mid 2010s the same way they did in Indian fintech and what became IndiaStack in the early 2010s, and China's equivalent in the late 2000s. YC has also been very active in the space in both markets by the late 2010s. A lot of the work around Pix is largely thanks to the fact that neobanks like Nubank hav…

VC investments are for private solutions to build likes of Alipay in India. These are govt. initiatives to ensure no one party gets monopoly on core infrastructure of the nation.

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

#607

Post by hgomersall »

happosai wrote: post #585
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…

> How much do you trust your government with your money? Eh, the money was printed by government and any value it has is based on how much people trust their government. Using government payment processor is small potato compared to those...

More than that, any value it has is based on the fact you have to pay taxes in it, by threat of violence.

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

#608

Post by chgs »

owebmaster wrote: post #426
matheusmoreira wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> removing the profit incentive You're far too optimistic. The current administration is trying to work itself out of a major economic crisis and there's nothing they would like more than to tax the crap out of every single Pix transaction.

Major economic crisis? 4 years growing >= 3% doesn't look like a crisis to me.

I assume op is talking about if it were implemented in the US.

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

#609

Post by ccppurcell »

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…

Hm, the problem is that a little over half of all politicians are ideologically opposed to the government running anything (the reason your comment felt "controversial", I suspect). Id hate to come to depend on it and always be one election away from it falling apart.

I can't say I have a good alternative. The co-op model works for supermarkets on an international scale, and for banks on a national scale (I am unaware of any international co-op banks). I wonder if it could work for payments.

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

#610

Post by pembrook »

ilirium wrote: post #590
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…

You have bizarre logic here. For example, in a topic discussed about GPUs, someone would say that it's not possible to run databases on GPUs, so GPUs don't have any chance of succeeding. > How much do you trust your government with your money? Do you trust crypto companies? Mt. Gox, FTX, Bybit… Do you know that crypto companies must follow government rules, regulations, and laws? Russians were banned from using many…

I would say your post has the logical flaws, not confronting any of the core criticism and instead misdirecting to other topics.

Creating efficient payment rails for its own currency is one of the most obvious roles for government imo. If the government provisions the currency, why would they not also provision the infrastructure (like the printing of the paper money).

That said, you’ve not offered a good rebuttal to any of OPs concerns, just repeated how good pix is within Brazil…right now with their current government.

Digital payments does present a uniquely frictionless route for tyrannical governments to assert power should they ever decide to weaponize it…unlike paper money which is harder to control.

Also, international payments is absolutely an issue with these systems. So you hate crypto due to its 2010s association with annoying Twitter bros. I get it.

But what are you offering instead as a solution to global money? Paying Wise stupid currency movement fees and waiting for them to close your account because you tried to buy a house for your family in the country you moved to?

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