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Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

elciudadano.com

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Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#61

Post by tardedmeme »

pimeys wrote: post #32

In EU we have multiple national systems, but now they are trying to unify them to the IBAN system, so you can pay in the same way by opening your bank app and scanning a QR code: https://wero-wallet.eu/ My bank (N26) should support this later this year. I hope it becomes as big and successful as Pix.

To be pedantic, IBAN isn't a payment system, but only an identifier. It's like an IP address - you still need to enlist the services of an ISP to reach it, and that ISP has to find an actual route and send packets over actual cables.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#62

Post by laurencerowe »

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #9
jacknews wrote: post #3

Every country should have this. Why would you let America take 2-3% of your transaction volumes? It perhaps made sense when the technology was difficult, and America was trusted, but ...

It's interesting that we live in 2026 and people still don't understand the fees of credit card processing. Visa charges only a Assessment fee the majority goes to Issuer Bank +PSP. E.g: Interchange fee (0.8-1.8%): Paid by acquirer to issuer (card-holding bank) Assessment fee (0.1-0.3%): Paid to card network (Visa, Mastercard) Acquirer margin (0.3-0.8%): Retained by merchant’s payment processor

EU regulations limit those interchange fees to 0.2% for debit card transactions and 0.3% for credit card transactions so total costs are much lower for businesses. Cards have replaced cash even for small transactions in most European countries.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#63

Post by laurencerowe »

varispeed wrote: post #28
ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that we live in 2026 and people still don't understand the fees of credit card processing. Visa charges only a Assessment fee the majority goes to Issuer Bank +PSP. E.g: Interchange fee (0.8-1.8%): Paid by acquirer to issuer (card-holding bank) Assessment fee (0.1-0.3%): Paid to card network (Visa, Mastercard) Acquirer margin (0.3-0.8%): Retained by merchant’s payment processor

All should be free. Imagine if government decided to impose 3% revenue tax, yet these companies get a free pass. If these networks cannot run this for free, then they should be nationalised and tax payer should cover it. It will be cheaper (because it will become non-profit) for everyone and better.

Cash handling also costs businesses money so I'm not sure it needs to be free, just strictly regulated.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#64

Post by fmobus »

surgical_fire wrote: post #50
cloche wrote: post #46

> Since 2022, Mastercard Brazil’s CEO, Marcelo Tangioni, has voiced his concerns: “Pix is great, beneficial for the industry. What’s not great is that it falls under the Central Bank. It can’t regulate and compete at the same time”. Why not? This is such an American point of view that sounds similar to why the IRS doesn't offer easier tax filing options.

This is a free market. All he has to do is offer a better service than the public offering. I always hear that the government is inefficient, should be easy no?

Whenever people start arguing about inefficient government they should be reminded that pix costs like 10M USD a year to run. An absolute bargain for what it delivers.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#65

Post by fmobus »

mrkramer wrote: post #7

Pix is for domestic use right? So tourists who come to Brazil still use Visa and Mastercard as well as Brazilian tourists who travel abroad. Visa and Mastercard are companies of the past, crypto and stablecoins will destroy them sooner or later.

How many transactions can you ran per second on major coins like BTC?

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#66

Post by scheme271 »

Seems fairly logical for any large country to create something like this. Visa/MC is nice but allows the US to apply undue pressure to individuals. E.g. the US applied financial sanctions on ICC officials in the EU resulting in them losing access to Visa/MC credit cards and banks even those are that are purely EU based.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#67

Post by pimeys »

laurencerowe wrote: post #59
pimeys wrote: post #32

In EU we have multiple national systems, but now they are trying to unify them to the IBAN system, so you can pay in the same way by opening your bank app and scanning a QR code: https://wero-wallet.eu/ My bank (N26) should support this later this year. I hope it becomes as big and successful as Pix.

Wero sounds similar to the US Zelle system but the big reason for that to exist in the first place is that bank account numbers are not safe to share in the US since they can be used to pull payments so there was never an option for easily transferring money to friends and family other than writing a cheque. In the UK and Europe I could just share my bank account number or IBAN and make payments through online bankin…

I think the biggest reason is sovereignty: we cannot risk US cutting our payment system if they for example don't give Greenland for them.

I think this is the biggest reason to ensure you can pay with a local system in shops and restaurants.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#68

Post by [deleted] »

Freak_NL wrote: post #35
protastus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to put this in context for folks who are not from Brazil. Comparatively, a domestic bank wire in Brazil before Pix was already easier and faster than one in the US today. I don't recall the bank fees being bad either. The issue is that bank wires were never designed for buying lunch at the food court. They're not instant and not user friendly to set up. Pix is alien technology next to the stuff we hav…

It sounds a bit like the Dutch Tikkie with the QR codes and instant transfer. Of course, in the EU most bank wires are already free when using SEPA, and often nearly instant as well. This Tikkie thing is a way to easily create a payment request for people who can't be arsed to simply carry cash (and raise the country's resilience to system failure in the process).

[deleted]

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#69

Post by nitwit005 »

shpx wrote: post #27

It's surprising that Visa and Mastercard are even private companies. I expected that the government would be in charge of money and not let a group of people impose a 1-3% tax on their population. In the US, credit cards account for "71% of nationwide retail sales dollars". Governments aren't competent enough to do tech stuff well and they would never make something that works in a different country as well as credit…

The US already has a competing payment system for benefits (EBT cards), as do many other countries.

Payments themselves are not a technical challenge, no matter who's doing it. The fundamentals are trivial. You move numbers between accounts.

It's tackling fraud and dealing with disputes that's a challenge.

Re: Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard

#70

Post by laurencerowe »

pimeys wrote: post #67
laurencerowe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wero sounds similar to the US Zelle system but the big reason for that to exist in the first place is that bank account numbers are not safe to share in the US since they can be used to pull payments so there was never an option for easily transferring money to friends and family other than writing a cheque. In the UK and Europe I could just share my bank account number or IBAN and make payments through online bankin…

I think the biggest reason is sovereignty: we cannot risk US cutting our payment system if they for example don't give Greenland for them. I think this is the biggest reason to ensure you can pay with a local system in shops and restaurants.

That's a very reasonable concern, though given how central Visa and Mastercard are I suspect it is probably necessary to regulate their structures within the EU so that intra-EU payments are not reliant on non-sovereign infrastructure.
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