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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: 0.001s | source | bottom
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afarah1 ◴[08 Apr 25 11:57 UTC] No.43620640[source]▶
WhatsApp is omnipresent for communication in Brazil, and WhatsApp Pay was ready before Pix, but the government blocked the launch to launch Pix first.[1] I rarely see this mentioned.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/brazil-suspends-w...

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1. ave_b_2011 ◴[08 Apr 25 12:44 UTC] No.43621079[source]▶
This is presented as problematic, but I don’t think it’s a negative thing.

You wouldn’t want a foreign company with billions of dollars in their war chest in charge of your countries payment system.

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2. Mystery-Machine ◴[08 Apr 25 13:01 UTC] No.43621280[source]▶
Isn't that what any other payment system and most of the banks around the world are - a foreign company with billions of dollars in charge of payment system in a country.

VISA, Mastercard, HSBC, UnionPay, ICBC, Santander... Or is this all Brazilian technology?

The difference is that Meta is privacy data hoarder, not that it's a foreign company. And it's not "in charge of countries payment system", because that's pretty-much impossible, but "one of the payment systems in the country".

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3. insane_dreamer ◴[08 Apr 25 15:04 UTC] No.43622619[source]▶
That's why China created UnionPay, so it wouldn't be held hostage to a large foreign corp (Visa, MC) for CC payments.

But most countries didn't have that capability. Kudos to Brazil for putting something together for domestic digital payments so as not to rely on a foreign company.

4. whimsicalism ◴[08 Apr 25 15:45 UTC] No.43623122[source]▶
actually, foreign capital and foreign investment is good - and fair play before the law facilitates that.

securitization and anti-globalization makes us all poorer, worse off, and more prone to conflict. lawfare is an addictive drug and can lead to serious outcomes, as history in Brazil shows any number of times - like even with the current president.

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5. maronato ◴[09 Apr 25 04:54 UTC] No.43628985[source]▶
WhatsApp pay wouldn’t be an investment. All money made from it, directly or indirectly, would go straight to the US
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6. whimsicalism ◴[09 Apr 25 17:03 UTC] No.43634497{3}[source]▶
that’s exactly how investments work. you build out something or fund the building out of something and then some of the returns are repatriated to the investor.

in this case, you invest in building out a compliant and easy money transfer service. in other cases, you invest in a toll road, etc. etc.

the whole point of investment is it is a win-win