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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

#171

Post by cess11 »

throwaway473825 wrote: post #110
amarant wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like pix is very similar to the Swedish swish. Phone numbers are used for identity, payments are instant, businesses often have qr codes with their identity etc.. It's like WhatsApp but with money!

The Swish system is private, which means that the fees are as high as the market can bear. In many cases cards are cheaper. If the e-krona happens, that would be a better comparison.

As is the dominant e-ID platform, because our politicians are fond of bank cartels.

It kind of works and Swish does too, unless they're down which happens every now and then, but there is room for improvement that would be easier realised as a public sector endeavour.

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

#172

Post by dzhiurgis »

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).

> free when using SEPA, and often nearly instant as well

It shocks me how well it works sometimes. Literally press pay and move eyeballs to notifications and it's there already.

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

#173

Post by cess11 »

reese_john wrote: post #144
DoctorDabadedoo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only reinforces the point that relying on american infrastructure as a critical piece of your stack, in 2026, is a liability.

This is not a real problem outside of niche industries American companies are great to do business with. Most countries, including Brazil, simply don’t have the capability to pull this on their own. Not enough tech talent nor infrastructure

There are exceptions but the "hyperscalers" and pretty much anything that handles personal information is highly toxic and should be fiercely avoided.

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

#174

Post by imtringued »

Nathanba wrote: post #77
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…

Sharing banking information is not safe in Europe, decades ago a phone scammer convinced me to give them my information and they were able to pull money from my account without any permission from me whatsoever, they just acted like I already signed up to their scam service when I never did. That was a completely foreign and insane idea to me (and it is still insane and should not be allowed) that someone can simply…

The way SEPA direct debit mandates work is absolutely mind boggling.

You'd expect it to work like Paypal, where you have to sign in to your account to authorize the direct debit mandate and also have the option to revoke it there.

No, the way it works is that you have to print out a form, fill it out and send it to the payee who you are granting the direct debit mandate, e.g. your landlord. Your landlord then sends a copy of the direct debit mandate to your bank and the bank authorizes direct debit payments immediately without asking you.

If you want to revoke the direct debit mandate, you have to send a form to your landlord that you want to revoke the direct debit mandate.

This is mindbogglingly stupid, since the payee has no obligation to process your revocation immediately and can take their sweet time.

Canceling a direct debit mandate has no impact on your obligation to pay rent. It makes no sense that you have to inform the payee and let them gatekeep the revocation. It also makes it possible for unscrupulous people to request a direct debit mandate without your knowledge.

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

#175

Post by nolok »

ginko wrote: post #164
melting_snow wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but because it can give ideas to other countries doing the same This is happening right now in Europe. You have systems like Blik, Twint, Swish etc. I know that at least Blik is working on making it possible for international payments.

What's needed in Europe is federation of the existing systems, not one winner taking it all.

That's exactly what's happening, see the EU digital euro scheme. It's planned to be free of fees too, modeled around how SEPA was done for wires.

There has been massive resistance by the incumbents of course, including banks (since they too charge a fee on top of visa).

It's been in the backlog for years but the US sanction against ICC judges leading to them being cut off from most things including payment triggered a renewal of it.

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

#176

Post by gmerc »

someonenice wrote: post #160
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #152

I can see that Visa and Mastercard are freaking out, not because Pix can take over their business model, but because it can give ideas to other countries doing the same. I've spent three months earlier this year in Brazil and never used Pix once. Not because I didn't want, but because I couldn't, or let's be honest: my time was not worth the hassle. To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID…

There is India's UPI (launched in 2016), Singapore PayNow (Launched 2017) that works in a similar way. And they also work across each platform.. UPI users in India can transfer to Paynow users in Singapore and vice versa. [1] https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/deposits/pay-with-ease/payno...

Thailand Promptpay is federated too, as are some Japanese services.

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

#177

Post by cess11 »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #152

I can see that Visa and Mastercard are freaking out, not because Pix can take over their business model, but because it can give ideas to other countries doing the same. I've spent three months earlier this year in Brazil and never used Pix once. Not because I didn't want, but because I couldn't, or let's be honest: my time was not worth the hassle. To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID…

"we are going to go back to how people used to travel 50 years ago: with a lot of USD bank notes hidden in your hotel room or elsewhere ..."

Who did that?

Most people except for criminals and refugees used traveller's cheques:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller%27s_cheque

I think some banks, like AmEx, still issue them.

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

#178

Post by jeroenhd »

throwaway473825 wrote: post #167
jeroenhd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is literally working on an alternative as we speak: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht... I think the cryptocurrency-based implementation is stupid and a product of its time, but the EU is investing a lot of money into a system to push Visa and Mastercard out. Many countries have their own payment systems already, often widely successful. Integration between these systems has been ann…

The EU would obviously benefit from a digital euro, but the banks won't give up without a fight: https://euperspectives.eu/2026/02/digital-euro-timeline-at-r... >Private banks are resistant to a digital euro both as a payment method and a store of value. The digital euro is designed to be a free, public payment method, directly challenging fee-based systems operated by banks. This is its key usefulness in terms of so…

The original release was a proof of concept. That proof of concept is currently being developed into a fully-fledged proposal. Once that proposal is accepted, and legislation is ready, the first actual implementations can begin.

I don't think you can call it a "delay", the project just moves at a glacial pace.

The entire project was never going to finish before 2030. Some banks are upset about it, for sure, but others are in favour.

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

#179

Post by jeroenhd »

throwaway473825 wrote: post #170
jeroenhd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wero's Dutch predecessor, iDEAL, has been an established part of online payments for 20 years now. As barely anyone has a credit card and very people want to deal with the faff of manually entering billing codes or account numbers, iDEAL usage is near universal for online payments. I don't recall fees ever going up as an end customer.

Card fees aren't paid by end customers either. The Swedish iDEAL equivalent, Swish, is more expensive than cards for smaller transactions (below 15 euros). Wero will be like Swish, not Pix.

Wero is not something that "will be", Wero already is. It used to be called something else for decades, but that doesn't change much.

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

#180

Post by sschueller »

The Swiss nation bank and other central banks should also do something similar. They are loosing control to private foreign corporations which decide what you can and can not purchase. Not based on laws but on risk.

One of the jobs of the SNB is to enable payments. But because most people are using digital payments now they are loosing this ability and control.

If you get sanctioned by the US you loose access to all digital payment systems. In Switzerland where access to a bank account is a right written in the law you can only use one bank (Postfinance) and this bank has to limit you to basically a useless account (No wires, no credit cards etc.) because even the internal digital payment system (Twint) touches some US system.

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