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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

(www.economist.com)
666 points jcartw | 1 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:59 UTC | HN request time: 1.519s | source
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marcodiego ◴[08 Apr 25 11:55 UTC] No.43620631[source]▶
I'm a Brazilian. Everything here can be paid through pix. It's very convenient, fast reliable and, for a country like ours where walking on the streets with money is a risk, safe.

There's only one reason I don't use it: there's no FLOSS app (AFAIK) to use it.

Something as common as the dominant payment system should not depend on proprietary software.

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1. fusionadvocate ◴[08 Apr 25 12:09 UTC] No.43620750[source]▶
Good were the days when you only could get robbed by what you had in your pockets.

Nowadays one goes around with a direct link to his or her entire bank account. And criminals know this in Brazil. They will rob your phone, but what they really want is to use you as an ATM. Private banks are not held accountable to the massive and rampant identity fraud in banking, where criminals will launder criminal transactions.

The private sectors does not care. Somebody who opened an account yesterday receiving R$5000,00 at 2 in the morning in the middle of the street? Nothing suspicious... This same account cashing out at an ATM the same next day? It is OK to me...

Brazilian banks need to be held accountable to 'know your customer' laws ASAP and be held liable for criminal activity undertaken on their systems.