Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.

I'd hate to see a system like that where I live, because the government will abuse it. We've already seen Canada freeze bank accounts of protestors, and US officials put protestors on the no fly list.

This doesn't make sense as a prioritization.

Oh no, my government might be run by nazis -> Let's make the government services crap

The nazis don't need to use your crap government services, so you're just pointlessly making things worse, this is the same delusion as "But it's illegal". Why on Earth would crooks care whether what they're doing is legal?

I suggest:

Oh no, my government might be run by nazis -> Ensure this does not happen OR leave

Yup. Despite how magical and convenient Pix is, I still consider returning to cash just for the huge privacy liability of using Pix. But it's so engrained in the culture now that you can't really use anything else

The govt already has full access to your bank account! Always did and KYC ended privacy.

Preventing convenient payment technology only hurts the rest of us. If you want redundancy buy gold coins.

Europe has SEPA payments. They are very fast and reliable, and separate from Swift.

We should focus on getting rid of KYC, instead of giving up on privacy and security.

The nuance is it does put you in a vulnerable position. It’s the financial equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. It looks super convenient to pay with Wechat and Pix but I can’t imagine how bad it would be if I get on the government’s bad side.

I really want a system where I can transfer money effortlessly but I also want a guarantee that I won’t be restricted access to my banking.

Indeed. KYC has a purpose though -- prevention of fraud, money laundering, etc. Getting rid of KYC without a similarly-effective solution for those things seems unlikely. Ideas?

I have only come across SEPA as a means of making transfers between bank accounts. Can it be used for payments too (e.g. instead of a credit card)?

It is also single currency - Euro only, right? Swift is global.

Dealing with many currencies and laws (e.g. countries with capital controls) is very complex.

Unfortunately you've described the essential American view of government.

Also, does it support micropayments?

Yes, min transfer 0.01 EUR

SEPA also works for SEK now, other EU currencies are in pipeline.

Swift is just a messaging standard and a message exchange network (distributed). SEPA is that, plus a settlement system (in a nutshell). That allows for speed and much more (instant payments, request to pay, pay by phone number, credit/debit transfers, etc).

You're bound to deal with currencies once you make any kind of transaction that originates in one currency and settles (finishes) in another.

Won't happen. Ever. Or concede to money laundering.

You're comparing Pix to bank transfers. I'm comparing Pix to cash.

Cash still exists, as well as the gold mentioned. Barter, haha. Didn't advocate against those.

Are there any reasons we can't have both KYC and privacy/security ?

Here’s an idea, get rid of cryptocurrencies and the need for KYC basically vanishes.

As a São Paulo citizen, I really don't recommend cash due robbery. Privacy may be a 1st world problem, but here, assault is a real concern.

Even in America it is an issue. Younger Americans maybe don't realise how prevalent muggings used to be when cash was common.

If you get rid of cocaine, the need for rehab centers also vanishes.

There is no way to “get rid of cryptocurrencies” at this point save for shutting off the internet. It is not within the power of the state to prohibit, any more than prostitution or cocaine.

Here in Sweden we have Swish which seems to be very similar (just send money to anyone with a phone number/QR Code), but Swish is a private company, not government.

Relatedly, most company payments here, including water/electricity/etc bills, are paid using a system called Bankgiro, which is also a private company (and you can pay Bankgiro bills using Swish, of course).

And even the de facto national electronic identity system, BankID, is developed and provided by a private company. It is used to login to your bank as well as most government systems and any company can use it for login (which most Swedish companies do).

So, it differs from the Brazilian model in that all services are provided by private companies, not by the Government. Not sure which is better, to be honest. On the one hand it's hard to trust a Government like the Brazilian one given its history... on the other hand, trusting a private company even for public services seems wild: what if they go bankrupt, get sold to foreign investors, started using shady business practices??

We also have Wero now, which unifies the mobile payment systems in belgium, France and Germany, with more to follow. Promises to be a unified mobile payment system across Europe within a couple of years.

Sure, there would be a black market for it, but that black market would be a lot smaller than the open market we have right now.

There’s plenty of legal ways of exchanging cryptocurrencies for real currencies, shutting those down would be a good start.

The national e-ID scheme should obviously be government run.

Sadly no one I've mentioned Wero to knows about it so I've never used it. I feel like banks were too set in their old ways and PayPal ate their lunch.

Is this a real question?

SEPA payments are quite expensive though, which most likely explains the prevalence of local payment system in every country.

The transaction cost compared to most domestic systems is absurdly high.

There's a reason why our government doesn't do anything that you can squint into a monopoly, the EU comes after us with pitchforks when we implement government monopolies. So the alternative is regulating some standard that a private organization implements and hope regulations are sound enough to not be exploited, or pray self regulation works.

That's why our railways are falling apart and why we have 2500 pharmacies but people up north have to travel to the town 100k away to get meds.

I wish the government that we elect every 4 years with public voting and kindergarten bartering could take ownership of things that are essential to life in Sweden, but nop it's all privatized so the companies can optimize profits by removing utility (BankID seems to be an exception here where the incentives align between companies and citizens).

That’s not really true. Most financial crimes are big operations facilitated by banks. Criminals love KYC because that’s a chance to make their operations seem legit.

I could see some sort of certificate driven approach.

Customers and merchants generate a keypair and CSR. The CSR by design contains no personal information. You submit the public key/CSR and seperate identifying information to a KYC authority.

The government generates a signed certificate the bank can use to open an account, and the customer or merchant signs their transaction requests using their private key to associate them with the account.

The bank has a paper trail showing KYC was performed, but does not have any personal information about the participants, almost akin to the old "numbered Swiss account" cliche.

Ideally, the KYC authority deletes the personal data after issuing certificates, but I'd expect it would be more "information can be released under court order" or "revocation policy blah blah blah".

That's the level of tradeoff I'd expect is politically viable. Bank of America doesn't know you're buying hentai, but if it turns out the 1000-year-old character is actually 12, a court can lift the veil.