Brazilian authorities suspend WhatsApp payments

Our central bank is going to release a platform called PIX. Financial institutions with more than 500.000 clients are required to implement it. Finally we are going to have a standard across banks, and money transfers are going to be less complex, clunky and costly.

Of course, other apps have come before. We have apps like PicPay, PayPal and Nubank, just to name a few, that provide instant, free money transfers. Unsurprisingly, each one rolled out their own standard, but they had to register at the central bank as a financial institution. This means that, at least the popular ones, will have to provide compatibility with the central bank's platform.

This new WhatsApp feature, to me, looked like a bold attempt to kill PIX at launch. People wouldn't mind this new feature inside their banking app that already exists, for a few months, in the messaging app they're used to. If the average Brazilian user sees a QR code, is it a WhatsApp Pay QR code they see regularly? Or is it that obscure feature inside their banking app, which they didn't pay attention to? What would make more sense for businesses to adopt, for the sake of simplicity?

I'm glad Facebook will not get away with that one. If they're going to launch this feature, our central bank should make sure that it's compatible with the nationwide standard that's going to roll out. I'd rather not need Facebook to conveniently pay for my loaf of bread.

Edit: replaced "service" with "platform".

You really think the Brazilian central bank is going to make a smooth, efficient, and cheap money transfer service? What reason do you have to expect that to work?