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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

#211

Post by somewhatgoated »

SomeUserName432 wrote: post #161
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…

> To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID). There are third party apps you can use to pay with pix using a credit card, can't recall that name, but read about it here a few months back, on another pix-thread. > CPF (Brazilian Tax ID). Then to open a bank account Getting a CPF is absolutely trivial, but I'm not sure you can open a bank account without RN/RNE, at least not with local banks.…

I think you need a RN/RNM to open a bank account even with online banks - I haven’t tried all of them of course so there might be some that work with cpf only

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

#212

Post by anthk »

embedding-shape wrote: post #201
throwaw12 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is already moving towards having own payment system with Wero

Most European countries I frequent already have their own local equivalent to Pix. In Spain almost everyone has Bizum, and not uncommon for vendors at markets to accept it too, Sweden has Swish which is the same deal for the Swedes. I think this lists the most prominent ones that are in wide usage today already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System... Apparently, some of these already have int…

Since May the 5th most shops will begin integrating Bizum within their payments systems.

In Spanish:

https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2026-04-01/a-partir-d...

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

#213

Post by fn-mote »

M95D wrote: post #192
Zardoz84 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on Europe there is talks about using Spanish's Bizum as the oficial European replacement for Visa/MasterCard

It's not a replacement until they issue cards that work without a phone.

Frankly, the number of people that care about no-phone functionality is tiny. I bet the greatest preference is the other way: the ability to use it without a physical card. Everyone has a phone.

Of course you need a backup at some point, but it’s just that: a backup.

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

#214

Post by embedding-shape »

anthk wrote: post #212
embedding-shape wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most European countries I frequent already have their own local equivalent to Pix. In Spain almost everyone has Bizum, and not uncommon for vendors at markets to accept it too, Sweden has Swish which is the same deal for the Swedes. I think this lists the most prominent ones that are in wide usage today already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System... Apparently, some of these already have int…

Since May the 5th most shops will begin integrating Bizum within their payments systems. In Spanish: https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2026-04-01/a-partir-d...

Since the Bizum became widespread, depending on the size of the business, some always did accept Bizum if you ask nicely :)

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

#215

Post by uxhacker »

fodkodrasz wrote: post #202

I guess this is largely equivalent to Qvik in Hungary. - Instantenous transfers ( It is implemented using an Erlang according to my information, and is a very robust, well designed and tested scalable system.

You actually have many alternative money transfer systems around the world.

Like Qvik you mention, UPI in India, Blik in Poland, and Swish in Sweden.

Even cross border systems like Revolut pay.

Surprisingly the first system started with MPESA in Kenya. Showing that innovation can happen Africa, and does not need to limited to Europe or the USA.

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

#216

Post by pyrale »

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

> Most countries, including Brazil, simply don’t have the capability to pull this on their own. Not enough tech talent nor infrastructure

One really wonders how the internet could even have happened before the hyperscalers appeared.

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

#218

Post by spwa4 »

cess11 wrote: post #177
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.

People did that? I took one look at the fees and ... "no thank you", and took cash.

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

#219

Post by yakkomajuri »

TIL that there are fees for Pix under certain circumstances (e.g. as a business receiving payments). I mostly use Pix for person-to-person transactions, and those are free (and instantaneous).

I don't even remember how we used to split bills back in the day anymore.

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

#220

Post by Xunjin »

reese_john wrote: post #129

It is worth noting that despite all this cheap sovereignty talk from Brazil’s president, in practice Brazil would not be able to operate Pix at that scale without heavily relying on American hyperscalers companies. Brazilian institutions are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to US cloud providers, specially AWS, to be able to process that many transactions. Earlier this year, when sa-east-1 was down, major banks…

Context is important, the Brazil's President said that about USA investigations with allegations that Pix is a "unfair business practices"[0] he is not at all saying that Pix is "100% powered by Brazil", in his political proselytism he does make clear that Brazil and USA are partners by centuries and should keep being.

0. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/articles/cm2vrnq17vdo

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