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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

#81

Post by jszymborski »

protastus wrote: post #41
jszymborski wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you say that Pix is comparable to Canada's Interac Debit?

Speaking as a non-expert, I think Pix has much bigger scope. Pix is account-to-account. One can buy real estate, pay bills, make person-to-person and business-to-business transactions, government payments, recurring payments. The funds also settle instantly. Most people don't experience the full scope of Pix which is impressive.

eInterac is also account to account, but single transaction limits are far too low to transact down payments or even many b2b payments.

People still increasingly pay their rent here via eInterac.

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

#82

Post by estebarb »

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…

It is not only "their" population. Mastercard and Visa captures a % of each sale done globally with their cards. It is perfectly reasonable for all countries to want to develop their own payment systems and stop paying taxes to the USA.

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

#83

Post by hakfoo »

nitwit005 wrote: post #69
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.

The hardest part is network effects.

Consider that the largest payment card network on Earth (China UnionPay, 7 billion cards) - decided it was easier just to bootstrap acceptance in the US by a partnership with Discover rather than connecting directly to merchants.

If you want a new scheme to work, distribute something like social security and welfare cheques through it. That immediately forces broad acceptance.

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

#84

Post by estebarb »

laurencerowe wrote: post #63
varispeed wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many banks already require monthly or annual payments for keeping an account with them. They also use the money from deposits to lend it at high interest rates. It is not like the banks are not extracting much more than a fair share of revenue from a captive market.

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

#85

Post by zinekeller »

neves wrote: post #80
cassianoleal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a bank in Brazil in the early 2000s. Bank transfers were always easy and relatively quick. At worst, transfers would happen overnight during a national event called bank compensation where all banks would sync up with the Central Bank. Pix solved a bunch of problems and made all of the above quicker and easier, but Brazil has been at the forefront of banking systems for a long time.

Man, It is perder of magnitude different. I've noticed it when I gave small money for a beggar using pix. It's really revolutionary. And remember that credit card fees are greater in Brazil

I won't dispute you or even cassianoleal, but compared to how was US in 2005 (just barely finishing check/que digitalization), Brazil is indeed faster in this forefront (and it enabled the creation of Pix in the first place).

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

#86

Post by reese_john »

augusto-moura wrote: post #45
cassianoleal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a bank in Brazil in the early 2000s. Bank transfers were always easy and relatively quick. At worst, transfers would happen overnight during a national event called bank compensation where all banks would sync up with the Central Bank. Pix solved a bunch of problems and made all of the above quicker and easier, but Brazil has been at the forefront of banking systems for a long time.

We had TED, but it was not instant, nor was it free. It only worked on working hours and took a maximum of 1h, still better than American banks, though. QR Codes is also a big deal. The deployment of PIX was also really well executed, if it took too much I'm 100% sure that Visa and Master would've made it worse. Being quick was a wise decision

TED is still very much alive.

In fact, the BRL amount settled via TED is still higher than Pix, although the gap seems to be closing

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

#88

Post by mikeweiss »

yangm97 wrote: post #79
mikeweiss wrote: post #53

When ever I visit Brazil now I feel very left out for not having Pix! I wanna join the electronic cash club. Don't think it's possible for foreigners tho

It should be possible, they issue CPF numbers even for tourists if you want.

Problem is you need a Brazilian bank account... Opening a foreign bank account creates tax nightmares.

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

#89

Post by plumeria »

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

Add an extra fixed fee if you need 3D Secure (and equivalents). This should be covered already by the assessment and interchange fees to begin with.

Card networks' moat is their network effect. If you need to take a payment from someone around the world, cards are very convenient. Unless Pix and friends get to interop globally, cards will always have a place.

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

#90

Post by raron »

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 is just another private company trying get their cut of payment fees. You can do the same thing with SEPA Instant Payment (or some member states outside of the Eurozone have their own similar thing).

I don't see why Wero should exists, their business model seems like "trying to get money for the same service you can get for free".

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