Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

Despite a global move towards a cashless society, 54% of Brazilians now opt for cash withdrawals.¹

2024 has seen a surprising reversal, as cash usage makes an unexpected comeback, defying predictions that the world was moving toward a cashless society. With rising cybersecurity threats, concerns over financial privacy, and economic instability, consumers and businesses are increasingly turning back to physical currency as a preferred transaction method.²

¹) https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazils-shift-bac...

²) https://www.adeptswipe.com/cash-makes-a-shocking-comeback-as...

I keep a few bills in my wallet, but I hardly ever carry it around.

Everybody accepts cards and Pix. Even beggars on the street use pix.

If I revert back to using public transport I will probably have a use for cash, but that's the only situation I can think of where it would make sense.

I believe it's more related to economic crisis and informal work (tax evasion). Brazil is very cashless for normal transactions.

Yeah there was a big thing where the government announced some new rules relating to reporting transactions to the local IRS equivalent. I believe that's the main reason for the fall in Pix usage.

That second link is completely wrong about Brazil though. Not uninformed, just every time Brazil is mentioned, it says the complete opposite of the reality.

And the claim in the first article is about using cash at any time. And it's by a ridiculous small margin. So in fact it's claiming that almost half of the population doesn't use cash at all.

It's only tax evasion if the activity results reportable income. Just assuming everyone, who does not use your favourite cashless platform, is a criminal, is bad marketing.

There is very little reason why a Business would prefer cash other than have some freedom in how it's reported. This is considering how much of a hassle and risk is involved in having large sums.

There is even less reason why a person would, most people in regular jobs get paid via bank accounts (Brazil even have a special kind with no fees for it). Now informal (non registered and non tax paying) employment is cash heavy: house cleaning, small repairs, produce vendors, etc.

I don't even think is criminal, it's kinda Business as usual in Brazil.

Money usage fell in Brazil, pix is the most used method, 37% of the workers are informal (no formal labour contract). They would mostly not be required to even report because of low income, the evasion in this case is being done by the employer, where they don't pay labour and the social security equivalent.

most places i visited (remote rural places like districts of > 300 people up to big cities) have a rechargeable card system where you can buy at any terminal

some buses in the surburbs of big cities only accept cards nowadays and you can recharge it online in 3 minutes (ofc if you are a citizen... brazilian goverment websites is a huge UX pile of shit; police, mail etc.)

more than 50% of the rural brazilian population doesn't hav internet access (that's 36 million people) [0]

the central bank admin. director says physical money is still the base of brazilian transactions [1]

[1] https://exame.com/economia/dinheiro-em-especie-ainda-e-a-bas...

[0] https://www.ecommerceupdate.org/noticias/brasileiro-esta-dei...

These systems are all built to help the bus owners, not the passengers.

Usually you have to go register for a card somewhere. It's just not practical, especially if you're just visiting. I've never seen a place where you could buy a card at a newsstand for a week or something like that.

According to Brazil's Central bank (and other sources) cash usage is 22%, there is no move whatsoever towards cash.

Source: https://www.bcb.gov.br/content/cedulasemoedas/pesquisabrasil...

if you are visiting a city and you are exclusively using the bus, in 2 or 3 travels the card pays itself for not dealing with coins and physical money... you can literally buy them in 5 minutes, no need to have a CPF exposed or whatever [they are called TOURIST CARDS for a reason]

around Paraty -> Angra dos Reis region you can literally visit/stop in more than 25 beach spots with the buses who circulate that area

and it's really nice that it helps the bus drivers. it even saves some time on embarking, which can add up in longer routes. godspeed on a single card (state agnostic) for the entire public transportation system (metro, bus, trains) in Brazil

I wouldn't trust this data. You realize the first link you send, is a data from DATAFOLHA, a private pollster. And the one who paid for the poll, was a ATM company (TecBan)?

Pix is still doing record of transactions, every month.

https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/12/23/pix-bate-re...