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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

#11
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 ...

> Why would you let America take 2-3% of your transaction volumes?

And spy on every single transaction

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

#12
post #4
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 ...

I misunderstood, psd2 is Europe's equivalent. And yes, every country should have this. Even America

PSD2 is merely a framework for an uniform access to banking, same APIs everywhere. While you can send money through it, it's still through the same means as normal.

Many of the european countries have their own "Pix", but there's no European-wide alternative. The ECB wants to make one (tentatively titled "digital euro"), but it's going to take a long time to come out.

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

#15
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) charge to provide the infrastructure (PoS machines, financing for installments, etc, the last one being quite common in the country) to use these networks.

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

#16
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

The banks and the payment processors are the real customers of the payment networks and they all do better when they can squeeze more money from the end users - the cardholders and the businesses. Pix cuts out these middlemen and that’s an existential threat to their business model, ergo an “investigation” by the Trump admin.

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

#17
post #2

It would be Un-American to overlook any chance to forcibly intervene in a Latin America country for the financial benefit of a large American company...wouldn't it?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/amer...

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

#18
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

The army of middlemen with their hands out is the worst part, where you also have fees paid to the merchant bank, the iso/payment service provider, and a chain of agents. In disfavored industries like adult content, this can reach 15% or more, plus thousands in annual "high risk" fees (even if chargeback rate is good). It's a huge anticompetitive racket, and the sooner US can shake off Visa/MasterCard, the better off we'll be.

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

#19
post #12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I misunderstood, psd2 is Europe's equivalent. And yes, every country should have this. Even America

PSD2 is merely a framework for an uniform access to banking, same APIs everywhere. While you can send money through it, it's still through the same means as normal. Many of the european countries have their own "Pix", but there's no European-wide alternative. The ECB wants to make one (tentatively titled "digital euro"), but it's going to take a long time to come out.

There are plans for interoperability between the various European payment apps.

My local app (MB Way, PT) can be used to send money to Spain and Italy. Others will follow.

https://www.mbway.pt/a-interoperabilidade-e-o-futuro-dos-pag... (link in portuguese)

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