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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

(www.economist.com)
666 points jcartw | 6 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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DanielHB ◴[08 Apr 25 12:15 UTC] No.43620800[source]▶
Sweden has had a similar system for several years before PIX in Brazil. It is also integrated with the digital ID system (BankID). The main difference is that the Swedish system is ran through a private organization managed by all the major banks (and the central bank) in conjunction. So the central bank doesn't have direct access to the transaction data technically.

While the Brazilian system is only interacted directly through your bank application, the Swedish application is a separate application tied to your bank account in the backend. Given the... quality of bank apps this is a huge plus. The Swedish Swish app is MUCH easier to use because it only does one thing. My Brazilian mother does not know how to send PIX because her bank app is very confusing and the PIX option is just one of many.

The BankID system of Sweden though is even more impressive than money transactions, pretty much everything government related (including healthcare, taxes, etc) and most private institutions (bank apps, Swish, digital contract signatures) is done through the unified BankID login.

People raised concerns over privacy, but the main problem really is that since these systems cut out the middle man (Visa/Mastercard) and have no fees you also have no fraud protection which is something to keep in mind when using them. Once you send the money it is gone, the banks will not give it back to you even if you got scammed. It creates a whole sort of scam industry in both countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(payment)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID

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1. panick21_ ◴[08 Apr 25 12:40 UTC] No.43621052[source]▶
I work in Swiss banking. We also have such a system for payments. Its very popular and used by most people. I keep saying they should use it as SSO, if you can authenticate payments you damn well can authenticate login requests. It makes no sense to go to an online shop, log-in with your shop account or google, and then when you pay, authenticate the payment with TWINT. And banks could even use it to login to their e-banking. Currently literally every bank has its own 'Access' App, that is almost the same but slightly different. And to my irritatingly they don't consistently encode TWINT information the same way into the normal banking transactions.

Our developer phones have like 40 apps on them to log into different test system, its madding.

In our system the pay system is also 'half' branded so you have to download 'TWINT-<bank>' not just 'TWINT'. Making it unnecessarily confusing and its literally the same app (from a user perspective).

It seems this Bank Id is an even earlier system adopted for modern SSO use-case.

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2. DanielHB ◴[08 Apr 25 13:23 UTC] No.43621521[source]▶
Yes BankID is the real MVP of digital systems, I heard some talks about the EU making one valid for the whole block. Hopefully it will fix all the countries.Everything is done through BankID in swedish-only institutions.

Put house on sale? bankid. Book a doctor appointment? bankid. Login to bank? Bankid. Open bank account? bankid. Sign contracts? bankid.

Heck I moved my pension (like a lot of money) to a different institution by just using BankID. Didn't have to call/email anyone, the process took 5 minutes (with about a month to actually process the transaction).

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3. jowea ◴[08 Apr 25 14:45 UTC] No.43622396[source]▶
Interestingly enough Brazil also has a system to use Bank login to authenticate on government systems.
4. nicolinox ◴[08 Apr 25 14:47 UTC] No.43622417[source]▶
Revolut is simplifying this, also in Switzerland. You checkout with the "Pay with Revolut" option. It's instant, magic and safe. You don't need to copy card details, just authorise the push notification.

I have also used it on airline websites, Aer Lingus and Wizz Air.

5. throwaway473825 ◴[08 Apr 25 14:59 UTC] No.43622557[source]▶
>Yes BankID is the real MVP of digital systems, I heard some talks about the EU making one valid for the whole block.

Sweden is actually in a pickle here. The dominant but private BankID doesn't satisfy all security requirements for the EU's digital identity wallet. It just isn't profitable.

The government is now working on a public government eID with a higher security standard, but many Swedes might still be left out since adoption will take some time.

This is one of many reasons why eIDs shouldn't be run by for-profits corporations, and sadly nothing would likely have happened without pressure from the EU.

6. dkga ◴[08 Apr 25 22:51 UTC] No.43627240[source]▶
I live in Switzerland - TWINT has other differences as well. To start, its settlement is not immediate as Pix's. As you point out, it is also not standardised.