281–290 of 397 posts
Even the dullest and most unimaginative civil servant / tax office employee / security or police member must have wet dreams imagining all the possibilities...
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…
China's UnionPay and AliPay are to various extents are integrated with the systems in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia [1]. Each country has its own system, but integrates with others. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/china-indonesia-have...
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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…
That's what I am afraid of. The resistance from the incumbents plus the external pressure from the US (and China?) might be to strong. Better go with a federated approach, mandating all the different payment apps available all over the EU to allow connections from other participants. In any case, the digital euro seems to take years (earlier expected date is 2029). I don't understand why it takes so long.
I've been living abroad for over a decade now, so I never got to experience Pix. I went back to Brazil a few years ago for a couple of weeks, and a kid on the streets asked me if I could buy some chewing gum and help him out. I wanted to, but I had no cash, so I told him I had no cash at all. He said "It's fine, just send me some with Pix". I still remember the incredulous look on his face when I told him I also didn…
To put it in context: everyone with a Brazilian bank account can use Pix. That's the reason "everyone" has it.
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Problem is you need a Brazilian bank account... Opening a foreign bank account creates tax nightmares.
Ah, so they're leaving the money on the table. I suppose they're worried about money laundering. Indonesia's electronic wallet have two tiers, unverified and verified. You don't even need a bank account (because most people don't), just a local number (which even tourist can buy easily at airport), with the limitation on unverified tier is that you can only top it up (by cash if you don't have local bank account) and…
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> The true scaling burden is on private banks not the BCB Exactly. That is one of the aspects that allow for the system to be sovereign and scalable. Banco Central controls the core, and that's all it needs to. This is good design. Descentralized, modern, resilient and efficient.
> Banco Central controls the core, and that's all it needs to. This is good design. Descentralized, modern, resilient and efficient. I agree. But was that not the case before Pix/SPI? It really didn’t change the status quo. The STR (transfer reserve system), which SPI is still fully dependent in practice btw, is decentralized, modern and efficient. The biggest change here was scale and adoption by private banks and e…
I'm here just to clear out the confusion regarding the infrastructural pieces. The core PIX is undeniably sovereign and state-owned, and the Amazon downtime was lack of resilience on the part of the banks (which they could have totally designed around but decided not to).
Read: The USA does not like what they cannot control!! I am glad to see the EU following Brazil with its own payment system. Visa/MasterCard/Paypal era is gone!!
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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.
People underestimate how difficult it was to transfer money before Pix, even between local banks. The process was hard to use, it could take days and the fees were huge, depending on your bank. Pix solved all these problems. What happens also is that many sellers provide discounts when using Pix, because you dodge the expensive fees charged not only by Visa and MasterCard, but the fees operators (banks, fintechs) cha…
In Brazil your employer kinda chooses which bank they use and you kinda have to open a bank account with them to get paid, but it is hardly worth it to move your credit card to another bank. This is why my salary came in one bank and my credit card bills came in another.
> 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.
And alternate payment methods are allowed, so if there was space for a private entity to offer a better/cheaper service they could. But it is hard to compete with a fully integrated (mostly) free service.