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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

#611

Post by riffraff »

jalapenos wrote: post #604
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

Really? You don't like the pea-soup on vomit color scheme?

I've been a loyal user of wise for more than a decade, since I used them to pay for my cross-currency wedding, and I can accept the name change since they wanted to show they were more than just money transfer (but just make it "bankwise", ffs), but the new brand style was a disaster.

Notice they dialed it down over time,it's now more neutral than at launch, so someone must have listened to the complaints.

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

#612

Post by lompad »

idiotsecant wrote: post #569
leonidasv wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much do you trust your government with your money? When you use Pix, your money is not in custody of the government. The money goes to/comes from a standard commercial bank, just like a wire transfer. What the government (Central Bank) does is just the infrastructure for moving money between bank accounts. The point about not being a global standard is valid, though. Although there are initiatives in progress t…

That doesn't particularly address the point. Say the government decides that they don't like the political party you're supporting, or maybe you've been doing something they consider morally unclean like gambling or consuming pg-13 media. Let's say the government decides that your payments can no longer use the payment infrastructure. Now imagine it's effectively the only practical payment method. It's a permissioned…

>If you own it, you can spend it, regardless of what anyone thinks.

Which is also its primary drawback.

Transactions are non-reversable, which inherently makes it unsafe for wide-scale use. Consumer protection is so important, clawing back payments is an incredibly important part of that.

Wrong copy-paste and all my money could just be gone forever? Yeah no, that's never going to fly in countries where consumer protection is seen as an important public good and always expected.

What you tout as a plus, is a major negative for the vast majority of people in developed democratic countries. In quite a few of them, access to a bank account is even a fundamental right.

And all that just because of some abstract fear? nty.

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

#614

Post by HPsquared »

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…

For federation, the hard part isn't building the system but building the required trust between the different states and getting it all set up legally somehow.

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

#615

Post by diogotc »

sandos wrote: post #452
throwaway473825 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I have never heard a single person complaining about BankID really. The only downside is the huge risks, especially for older people. We basically took control of an elderly family members bankid to avoid them being scammed. This is something they really need to work on, just add an optional extra layer or cool-down, to slow everything down. You dont necessarily HAVE to have your transactions be immediate, waiting a…

> I have never heard a single person complaining about BankID really.

You haven't met any foreign people then, BankID is a common complaint among international students. I've moved to Sweden recently for university and getting BankID was/is a nightmare. It requires you go get a bank account (which I don't want nor need, and has yearly fees), and since the ID card we get from Skatteverket does not have NFC, we need to go to the bank to setup it on a new phone every time (at least on SEB). And getting a bank account is not a simple process either, it took me like 3 months doing paperwork (and had to mail it physically, they don't do in-person appoitments for this), and I'm an EU citizen. Obviously for Swish you'd need a Swedish bank account, but my point is that you should be able to get a digital eID from the government without any other requirements (like I got my physical ID card from Skatteverket).

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

#616

Post by CraigJPerry »

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…

> How much do you trust your government with your money?

The money that they issue? Your question is radically flawed.

That aside your main point is that crypto continues to be as relevant in cross jurisdiction payments even after the introduction of a pix like system of payments in each country.

Crypto transaction volumes across all crypto currencies are so low compared to FOREX in any of the worlds currencies (even relatively unused ones - currency speculators still drive transactions even there) that it’s basically irrelevant today in this use case. So your argument becomes it’s irrelevant today and will continue to be tomorrow.

If you’re to express the volume of all crypto transactions, not just those for the purpose of international transaction, just everything in all crypto currencies. The daily volume compared to transactions in all the other non crypto currencies ends up looking like a homeopathic dilution ratio, 0.00000000000000…%

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

#617

Post by johngladtj »

scott_w wrote: post #591
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? If you’re not able to trust the government to not steal your money then I suspect you have bigger problems and should look to claim asylum elsewhere.

So every Canadian?

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

#618

Post by red_trumpet »

cubefox wrote: post #220
palmotea wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I believe in Germany the national weather service in fact rolled out such an app, but was then stopped by a court because this counted as unfair competition with private entities.

The app is still available, but to use all features you have to pay a couple of Euros: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.dwd.warnapp...

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

#619

Post by DANmode »

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…

They said cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance,

the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology,

but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency.

Not just one feature of its existence.

Common conflation.

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

#620

Post by [deleted] »

DeathArrow wrote: post #135
TrackerFF wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a realistic option in the US, at least in the current climate. There are so many powerful and influential anti/small-government that are rabidly opposing anything made by the government, and offered to the people. The argument is always the same: - "It will stifle innovation" - "It is unfair to business" - "It will make people dependent on the government" - "It will give government more access to…

>For decades the American people have been told that anything the government touches will be expensive, inefficient, and lead to a more taxes. Private sector knows best, and all that. Do you have some counter arguments?

[deleted]
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