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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

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

#631

Post by Propelloni »

roenxi wrote: post #492
Propelloni wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "institutions of democracy" would that be, if the state is fascist or communist? And I think you severly underestimate the reach a totalitarian state has. Hint: it is total.

People don't change because a state is democratic. There are still authoritarians getting voted into power and present in the government; they just get voted out if the damage they are doing gets too visible.

People change a lot when the environment changes, this has been shown over and over again. You actually only have to look around. Yet it's the people who make the state not vice versa. Quite a conundrum.

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

#632

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

Spivak wrote: post #504
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #418

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…

> 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.

This is exactly what I'm talking about and I'm not certain whether you're sarcastic .. Paying $75 on a 25k amount with a transaction time of 24 hours to complete is absolutely insane. You'd have used USDT or USDC or any other stable coin, you would have paid <$1 of fee and got the transaction done in seconds.

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

#633

Post by brabel »

Xunjin wrote: post #235
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…

The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.

Here in Sweden we have Swish which seems to be very similar (just send money to anyone with a phone number/QR Code), but Swish is a private company, not government.

Relatedly, most company payments here, including water/electricity/etc bills, are paid using a system called Bankgiro, which is also a private company (and you can pay Bankgiro bills using Swish, of course).

And even the de facto national electronic identity system, BankID, is developed and provided by a private company. It is used to login to your bank as well as most government systems and any company can use it for login (which most Swedish companies do).

So, it differs from the Brazilian model in that all services are provided by private companies, not by the Government. Not sure which is better, to be honest. On the one hand it's hard to trust a Government like the Brazilian one given its history... on the other hand, trusting a private company even for public services seems wild: what if they go bankrupt, get sold to foreign investors, started using shady business practices??

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

#634

Post by pharrington »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #418
reaperducer wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

try to use Pix outside of Brazil Try to use cryptocurrency for anything other than a few very specific transactions at a number of places in the world so small that it's a rounding error. Still cryptocurrencies as-is remain relevant And somehow less relevant than cash. I can take cash from any country in the world to my local bank, and deposit it into my account. I can get a dozen different foreign currencies at my l…

> 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…

Can you be more explicit about what large, legal purchases you've made with crypto?

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

#635

Post by irjustin »

dguest wrote: post #621
irjustin wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how they all work including western union. It's not a secret but it's not really talked about either. No one pays FX fees on each transfer. Single large rebalancing transfers allows them to actually move money at optimal times and rates with bulk discounts. Then they can currency hedge and get larger spreads on the actual fx rate.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how is the "single large rebalancing transfer" accomplished? I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side. My assumption was that it usually comes down to finding someone else with money in both currencies (i.e. a large bank or government) and exchanging one for the other. Of course that's unsatisfying: it's not jus…

> it's not just turtles all the way down

If you drill far enough... well anyway

> I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side.

The Treasury is the machine you're looking for. And the wire transfer, SWIFT, usually, is the tool of choice. In a sense, yes dollars are "destroyed" in that they leave that monetary system. Banks like BoA hold a few kind of ledgers with the country's central bank one which gets discounted during the outflow.

So euros are then credited to whatever institution you transferred it to. That country just became that much richer.

This is why places like HSBC, CITI have free transfers for intra-bank but you still pay $15 for the same via wire transfer? Why would you ever want to do that? beats me, but the point is you can and it has a very real affect on the system other than some internal database going +/-.

But in the end, it's the country's central bank credit/debiting any institution and then just... printing? when it wants? but other countries... m1... foreign debt.

so yea, turtles.

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

#636

Post by StackRanker3000 »

timewizard wrote: post #439
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until you say something the government doesn't like and they decide that part of your punishment should be lack of access to payment services. How much worse is that than the same thing happening when you do something a private company doesn't like? And how much different is that than what the Federal government could already do? If the government says you're a terrorist, you're not accessing any banking.

> when you do something a private company doesn't like? Well, it's completely different, because ostensibly I can switch to another private company. Is there an option, ever, for me to just change which government I subscribe to? > If the government says you're a terrorist, you're not accessing any banking. In the US this can only be true for foreign citizens. Broad classes of assets and liquidity are well protected…

> In the US this can only be true for foreign citizens. Broad classes of assets and liquidity are well protected for US citizens unless you end up in the unusual situation where they sue the money itself. If you have cash in your hand nothing can stop you from spending it.

Why would this be any different if it was the government running payment services rather than private entities? You haven’t explained why having those middlemen protects you from the same authority that makes up and enforces the rules anyway.

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

#637

Post by orthoxerox »

dguest wrote: post #621
irjustin wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how they all work including western union. It's not a secret but it's not really talked about either. No one pays FX fees on each transfer. Single large rebalancing transfers allows them to actually move money at optimal times and rates with bulk discounts. Then they can currency hedge and get larger spreads on the actual fx rate.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how is the "single large rebalancing transfer" accomplished? I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side. My assumption was that it usually comes down to finding someone else with money in both currencies (i.e. a large bank or government) and exchanging one for the other. Of course that's unsatisfying: it's not jus…

Yes, at some point you have to load a plane with cash. The point is that each of the turtles can consolidate smaller payments to both minimize transfer fees and cancel out money flows running in opposite directions.

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

#638

Post by KingInTheFnord »

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?

Money is (for the purposes of this conversation) created and guaranteed by the government, and regulated by law, so I think it’s a little weird to not trust the government with my money.

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

#639

Post by XorNot »

lmz wrote: post #583
Spivak wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You do know that 3 out of the 4 most populous countries have currencies with restrictions on foreign exchange? Send a lot of money out internationally and they will ask for reasons and documents as evidence.

Do you imagine that large changes in your local currency holdings with no explicable financial transactions would be unnoticed?

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

#640

Post by OvbiousError »

skeletal88 wrote: post #339
Xunjin wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.

Europe has SEPA payments. They are very fast and reliable, and separate from Swift.

We also have Wero now, which unifies the mobile payment systems in belgium, France and Germany, with more to follow. Promises to be a unified mobile payment system across Europe within a couple of years.
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