Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 187 posts

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#81

Post by jowea »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #68
ojosilva wrote: post #3

This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments a…

In sweden we got Swish which is instant payments. But costs money when business use it (but cheaper than credit cards i think)

This is also true for Pix.

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#82

Post by ozgrakkurt »

mvieira38 wrote: post #74
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just better in my experience. You just scan a QR code and pay. Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have. Or to think you are making “points” by spending more money

You're wasting a relevant amount of money by not using a credit card in Brazil. Interest rates are so high right now they have reached 1% monthly, which you can pocket by just delaying payment on everything for a month. And credit is stupid cheap here, too, with a bunch of different picks for free credit cards giving thousands of reais for anyone. If you have some money you can easily get a card with high cashback, a…

I live in central Asia, inflation is very low where I live.

But yeah I get the point. It was similar in Turkey, but still wasn’t that valuable to save 1% unless you are really trying to squeeze hard

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#83

Post by ozgrakkurt »

gruez wrote: post #64
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just better in my experience. You just scan a QR code and pay. Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have. Or to think you are making “points” by spending more money

>It is just better in my experience. >You just scan a QR code and pay. Tap to pay (ie. NFC) with credit cards is as convenient and arguably more convenient than a QR code solution. At the very least you don't have to worry about aiming at the QR code and waiting for it to scan/focus, which is especially important if you're using it on transit systems.

Still prefer a debit card for this, credit aspect just hasn’t been of any use to me so far. And I see people getting into problem because of credit cards a lot.

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#84

Post by inerte »

Argonaut998 wrote: post #4

Last week Trump targeted Pix and Brazil for discriminating against Mastercard and Visa[0]. Also last week there was the Steam debacle involving the same two companies which brought attention to the power that this duopoly holds all across the world. In Brazil many people, if not the majority use interest free instalments to pay for anything above groceries - “parcelas”, all of which, until now, were done through Mast…

"interest free" deserves quotes. It appears to be so because the installments have the same value but in reality it's priced in the overall length vs price.

The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#85

Post by riffraff »

em500 wrote: post #47
rcruzeiro wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems like these are very common in Europe. Here in Norway, you can pay for almost anything, anywhere with Vipps. It works very similarly to Brazilian Pix. Another system I have used in the past is the Portuguese MBWay which although similar to Pix and Vipps, doesn’t seem to be as widely adopted as the former.

The problem is that most European schemes are country specific. As soon as you cross the border even to another European country, your options are pretty much cash or Visa/MasterCard.

Yeah, the ECB just published[0] the latest report on the digital euro which is supposed to solve this across the eurozone and seems potentially quite cool, but it'll be years before it's reality.

0: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ec...

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#86

Post by jowea »

brainwad wrote: post #41
henry700 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cashback you are given back is taken from a fraction of the fee levied on merchants by the Payment Processing company they use. The only thing holding this system together is the lobby (also funded by a part of the aforementioned fee on merchants) by the Payment Processing industry to uphold laws that prohibit more expensive payments for more expensive payment methods, and also the extensive marketing (funded by…

Credit card isn't more expensive than its main competitor, cash, though. It's just the costs of credit card acceptance are transparently added to each transaction, while the costs of cash are distributed over the whole day's cash transactions and so more opaque. Merchants have a psychological (and in some countries, legal) barrier to charging more for cash than other payment methods, even though it's the least effici…

Cashback is just giving part of the profit margin of the fees charged on the transactions to the customer. I would rather that profit margin gets split between the customer (lower prices) and merchant. Also, didn't the EU eliminate cashbacks by precisely price capping transaction fees?

I've seen merchants giving a discount for payment with Pix. And a few stores refuse credit cards and only accept debit and Pix (and cash?).

Also, isn't the main competitor to CC the debit card? And now in some countries instant payments? Is debit that rare in the US?

Although to be honest I'm not 100% sure if it isn't some tax evasion thing.

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#87

Post by jowea »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
Argonaut998 wrote: post #4

Last week Trump targeted Pix and Brazil for discriminating against Mastercard and Visa[0]. Also last week there was the Steam debacle involving the same two companies which brought attention to the power that this duopoly holds all across the world. In Brazil many people, if not the majority use interest free instalments to pay for anything above groceries - “parcelas”, all of which, until now, were done through Mast…

Europe and the UK have instant SEPA credits and debits, no? That's 41 countries within the single instant payment system. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...

From the comments it seems it supports direct person to person transfers, but how easy is it to use it for payments? Can you use SEPA to pay for your groceries? Or buy something on the Internet?

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#88

Post by kwanbix »

ojosilva wrote: post #3

This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments a…

While it is a private service by a company called Mercado Libre (which means Free Market), in Argentina we have Mercado Pago (which means Market Pay), has instant payments and it is free for 99% of the people that do P2P transactions. It is free for anyone, meaning, you don't pay to use it. You only need your national document. Of course, after seeing the success, the banks tried to implement MODO, but it was already too late.

Re: Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

#90

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

mlinhares wrote: post #76
ojosilva wrote: post #3

This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments a…

Developed countries (like the US) do have these capabilities, there's fed now in the US, but the banks have captured the government apparatus so that the government can't force it to become the default cos they wouldn't be making interest money on the cash they get to hold without instant payments.

The second part "but the banks (in Developed countries) have captured the government apparatus" seems to be true mainly of the USA?

As SEPA in the EU, and Faster Payments in UK don't seem to fit that.

Unless you have other examples outside of the USA, or a different opinion on SEPA?

Post reply on HN