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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

economist.com

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Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#761

Post by vasco »

idiotsecant wrote: post #686
vasco wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose to get money into and out of crypto in this world where your government doesn't want you to pay for anything? Or we just assume everyone starts as a crypto millionaire in this example?

The same way we get value into fiat currency. By exchanging it for goods and services?

So you will find employment with someone who also has trouble with the government? Why would they pay you in crypto? In this hypothetical world where the government doesn't want you to pay for things, and crypto exists, why aren't they also going after your crypto and employment?

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#762

Post by wuming2 »

ta12653421 wrote: post #717
wuming2 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t speak French but BdF presents a side by side comparison: https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/a-votre-service/particuliers... As far as I understand SEPA ICT was developed by the Euro Payment Council. An industry body. ECB TIPS, albeit maintaining compatibility with the scheme, provides an harmonised service across the entire Eurosystem and beyond.

> entire Eurosystem and beyond mmh, not really - banks who are connected to the Euro-Zone can use it, but it has not a "beyond-EU"-ambition. TIPS is just one of the two clearing-mechanisms, there is also RT1 (which is operated by a private entity and launchend long before TIPS came into place, TIPS is operated by each countries national bank in coop with ECB), since some time, there is interoperability, so you can tr…

My understanding is EBA’s RT1 is enabled by SEPA Instant CT. Itself an industry lead initiative under ECB oversight. ECB is tiding things up with TIPS by evolving the specifications and also providing the service directly in central bank money. At a much lower price.

TIPS represented more than 50% of all TARGET number of payments at the end of 2024: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/payment_statistics/large_val...

Beyond TARGET, ECB noted repeatedly the reliance on international card schemes for electronic payments and card transactions in the EU. The latest report restating that accounted for approximately 61% of euro area card transactions in 2022: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr2502...

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#763

Post by nitwit005 »

c7b wrote: post #482
seanalltogether wrote: post #4

Given the fact that the central government uses taxes to fund the creation and managements of a countries currency, it makes perfect sense that in the digital age it should also be funding the infrastructure to send digital transactions with that currency. I wonder how differently the internet would have developed if microtransations were free and easy to transfer.

> Given the fact that the central government uses taxes to fund the creation and managements of a countries currency That's not a fact, in fact it's typically the other way round, issuing a currency is generally profitable and the profits typically flow into the general government budget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage It's managed by the central bank, though, btw, which is considered separate from the gov…

Creating digital currency can be as simple as incrementing a number or adding a ledger entry. Creating paper currency can be quite expensive. There are tens of billions of US notes in circulation.

Both are "profitable", as there is more money in the end, but governments are eating real costs to manage the physical bills.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#764

Post by dewey »

decimalenough wrote: post #754
dewey wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might have worked for you but it's still not trivial. There's many hoops to jump through still like random ID verifications, many banks not being supported to be linked, account locks that can only be unblocked by having a WeChat contact vouch for you etc.

This was the case when I jumped through those hoops in 2019, but it's much more straightforward now. Passport, phone number (doesn't have to Chinese) plus credit/debit card unlocks up to RMB 50,000/mo, with no fees for transactions under RMB 200. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/wechat-enables-foreigner...

That article is from 2023, things changed a lot in the past years. I just clicked on "Top up balance" (while being located in China) and it says "Please add a debit card issued by a Chinese Mainland bank to use the top-up function".

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#765

Post by ilirium »

chneu wrote: post #219
palmotea wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm thinking, maybe controversially, centralized national payment service like this should be government-run based on my experience with Alipay which is a digital payment service in China. After dealing with many private sector services, I think a lot of things should be government run. For instance: weather apps. Private sector ones are just a vector to track and sell your location data, and they rely on governmen…

That's exactly why NOAA in the US is under attack. Conservatives see $$$ potential if they privatize it.

> why NOAA in the US is under attack

As far as I know, AccuWeather is the main beneficiary. You can easily find reliable sources about it.

The cause is that NOAA publishes all weather data, calculated models (global coverage), meteostations data (global coverage), and weather radars to the public for free (US only, maybe also Canada, I don't remember). Therefore, many weather companies use such data to do their business and compete directly with AccuWeather. They don't like this.

On the other hand, state weather agencies that calculate global models in many countries don't provide such data for free. Therefore, startups and small companies who work in weather and climate fields use NOAA data and directly compete with AccuWeather or don't pay them for data access.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#766

Post by ilirium »

somedude895 wrote: post #228
chneu wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why NOAA in the US is under attack. Conservatives see $$$ potential if they privatize it.

I'm sure the NOAA is under attack because someone in the administration really wants to launch a new weather app.

The weather app doesn't give much money. The main business sells weather and climate data B2B: agro, insurance, logistics, retail, supply chains, advertisement, medical, etc.

Companies whose primary business is weather apps are small, and such areas are highly competitive.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#767

Post by decimalenough »

dewey wrote: post #764
decimalenough wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the case when I jumped through those hoops in 2019, but it's much more straightforward now. Passport, phone number (doesn't have to Chinese) plus credit/debit card unlocks up to RMB 50,000/mo, with no fees for transactions under RMB 200. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/wechat-enables-foreigner...

That article is from 2023, things changed a lot in the past years. I just clicked on "Top up balance" (while being located in China) and it says "Please add a debit card issued by a Chinese Mainland bank to use the top-up function".

If you have a foreign credit card, there's no need to maintain a balance at all, transactions are passed through directly.

And yes, of course there are limits on what you can do as a visitor, but for normal touristy stuff it's quite sufficient.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#768

Post by dguest »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #732
dguest wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how is the "single large rebalancing transfer" accomplished? I don't know of any machine where dollars go in one side, are destroyed, and euros are created on the other side. My assumption was that it usually comes down to finding someone else with money in both currencies (i.e. a large bank or government) and exchanging one for the other. Of course that's unsatisfying: it's not jus…

Yes, it's just the banks. They have both. It's really not rocket science. It should be satisfying in the following sense - the financial system is nowhere near as complicated as it seems. There is no magic. If you find yourself feeling like there is some magic somewhere, just ask another question because there is likely just a word or a layer of indirection that is making something quite simple seem mysterious.

Well, at your suggestion I did ask ChatGPT, and it pointed to one sort of magic trick: currency swaps between central banks. That is (kind of) a machine where one type of money goes in one side and the other type comes out the other. There's even a cool tracker [1].

But yeah, it's mostly just market forces that keep things stabilized, it seems.

[1]: https://www.cfr.org/tracker/central-bank-currency-swaps-trac...

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#769

Post by forinti »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #757
forinti wrote: post #216

Brazil was in constant economic chaos in the 80s and 90s, so the banking system invested a lot in automation and communications. I actually think it took too long for Pix to be invented. The piping was all there. Somebody just had to have the idea. Even in the 80s you could easily transfer from any bank to any other bank.

All the way back in 1995, brazilian bank Bradesco launched internet banking software for the Sega Mega Drive. I wonder if it was the first banking app. https://segaretro.org/TeleBradesco_Resid%C3%AAncia

Wow, I never heard of that. That is so interesting. In retrospect, it's a great platform, because there's no risk of malware.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#770

Post by xinayder »

rebanevapustus wrote: post #369
xinayder wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we, a developing "third-world" country, have a better functioning payment system than the US, where it takes days, or even weeks, for a wire transfer to land, and you pay a huge amount of fees for that. Cases in point: - To transfer money to a broker, I need to pay around $5 in transfer fees via ACH or wire - I want to change the custody of my stock market assets from one broker to another, and it will cost me $7…

It's cool that "we" have a payment system, however, I would never be comfortable using something whose people in charge are those that keep us (not me particularly because I've gladly left the country almost a decade ago) in this misery. I use Crypto for everything you've mentioned. It's instant, almost free, and alexandre(he deserves a lowercased a) can't take my money if he feels that writing his name in lowercase…

Do you have a guide on how to use it or what services accept crypto for this purpose?
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