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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

#241

Post by bombcar »

spwa4 wrote: post #218
cess11 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

We always got traveler’s checks from AAA which were “free”.

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

#242

Post by 202508042147 »

Looking forward to a European-wide payment system. Sure, there are apps probably in each individual country that you can use to pay (via a QR code) or easily transfer money (usually using a phone number). But there are cases like renting a car or paying abroad which are not covered. Seems a bit crazy considering this is a common market. Why don't these apps look to expand more aggresively in the EU? I know there's Wero, but why aren't they more bald in their approach? I also know there's the digital euro promoted by the European Commission, but I'm not holding my breath for that. It takes way too long and my feeling is that it is being used mostly to pressure the US. I don't think we'll be able to use it anytime soon.

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

#243

Post by bombcar »

johnea wrote: post #58
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…

The entire problem solved by Pix is an artificially created obstacle put in place so banks can charge for something they do for free. The article doesn't mention China's digital renminbi, but it is similar, including the aspect of being offered by the country's central bank. Rather than this looking like "Alien tech" in the US, it's just another example of things in the US looking more like stone age tech to the rest…

“Money transfer” is, at the end, a database transaction. It’s a solved problem - no aspect of what is needed is unsolved.

It’s just that there are billion dollar entrenched companies that do not want sending money to be as easy as a click.

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

#245

Post by Hernanpm »

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…

Other countries adopting it is already happening. I live in Bolivia, and a few events made QR payment systems widely used across the country. I have family in Peru, and it is a similar case with Yape, another QR payment system. In Bolivia, fintech companies also offer integration with Pix in Brazil without the need for a CPF to send and receive payments. Since we are neighbors, this is very handy.

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

#246

Post by reese_john »

gaigalas wrote: post #231
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…

You are incorrect. What went down were apps from banks that use PIX, not the core infrastructure. That is responsibility of the banks. It means private banks like Itau and Nubank rely on Amazon, not the Central Bank. They relied on those hyperscalers for their operation, and their gateways went down with it. PIX has sovereign, private infrastructure on brazillian soil managed by Banco Central. NIC.br and other essent…

This is a minor technicality, if private banks are down then the SPI is basically useless. Banks can send money to each other but clients can’t see it.

> What went down were apps

Plus, this is an oversimplification.

Transaction authorization, Fraud/AML screening, account validation are not just part of an “app”, they are core functionality of private banks operations, and they are made scalable by big cloud providers.

The true scaling burden is on private banks not the BCB

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

#247

Post by andrepd »

fn-mote wrote: post #213
M95D wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The stated objective of this initiative is to break free of the American Mastercard/Visa duopoly. It would be pretty fucking stupid that if replacement required the use of the American Apple/Google duopoly!

Convenience of use with your phone is one thing. Requiring a (locked-down, attestated) phone to create an account is another thing entirely.

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

#248

Post by LeonidasXIV »

202508042147 wrote: post #242

Looking forward to a European-wide payment system. Sure, there are apps probably in each individual country that you can use to pay (via a QR code) or easily transfer money (usually using a phone number). But there are cases like renting a car or paying abroad which are not covered. Seems a bit crazy considering this is a common market. Why don't these apps look to expand more aggresively in the EU? I know there's We…

Yes, I agree. It's a bit weird because finally, after decades SEPA ICT is here and could be used to back this thing. It just needs to be more user-friendly.

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

#249

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

is_true wrote: post #193
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…

You don't need a brazilian tax ID to use PIX, I've used it from MercadoPago from another country and there are a lot of options to use it besides MP.

Well .. How did you register to MercadoPago? I never was able when I was in Argentina (end of last year). It also asked me for some official IDs in Argentina which is even harder to get than a CPF (or probably impossible as a non-resident, I didn't bother at that point)

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

#250

Post by reese_john »

Xunjin wrote: post #220
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

Please, he literally went on national TV on Brazil’s Independence day to claim that

“We will defend PIX from any attempt at privatization. PIX belongs to Brazil, it's public, free, and will remain so.”

Lula has been historically hostile to the US for ideological reasons.

He’s done plenty to undermine that relation, stemming from attacking the dollar dominance, ignoring Iran sanctions, to indirectly financing the Ukraine war by becoming the largest buyer of cheap Russian oil — and that’s why we have those investigations going on

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